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Relaxation Techniques To Control Stress

Article taken from: www.fitness-equipment-solutions.com

These three useful physical relaxation techniques can help you reduce muscle tension and manage the effects of the fight-or-flight response on your body. This is particularly important if you need to think clearly and perform precisely when you are under pressure.

The techniques we will look at are Deep Breathing, Progressive Muscular Relaxation and “The Relaxation Response”.

Deep Breathing
Deep breathing is a simple, but very effective, method of relaxation. It is a core component of everything from the “take ten deep breaths” approach to calming someone down, right through to yoga relaxation and Zen meditation. It works well in conjunction with other relaxation techniques such as Progressive Muscular Relaxation, relaxation imagery and meditation to reduce stress.

To use the technique, take a number of deep breaths and relax your body further with each breath. That’s all there is to it!

Progressive Muscular Relaxation
Progressive Muscular Relaxation is useful for relaxing your body when your muscles are tense.

The idea behind PMR is that you tense up a group of muscles so that they are as tightly contracted as possible. Hold them in a state of extreme tension for a few seconds. Then, relax the muscles normally. Then, consciously relax the muscles even further so that you are as relaxed as possible.

By tensing your muscles first, you will find that you are able to relax your muscles more than would be the case if you tried to relax your muscles directly.

Experiment with PMR by forming a fist, and clenching your hand as tight as you can for a few seconds. Relax your hand to its previous tension, and then consciously relax it again so that it is as loose as possible. You should feel deep relaxation in your hand muscles.

The Relaxation Response
‘The Relaxation Response’ is the name of a book published by Dr Herbert Benson of Harvard University in 1968. In a series of experiments into various popular meditation techniques, Dr Benson established that these techniques had a very real effect on reducing stress and controlling the fight-or-flight response. Direct effects included deep relaxation, slowed heartbeat and breathing, reduced oxygen consumption and increased skin resistance.

This is something that you can do for yourself by following these steps:

• Sit quietly and comfortably.
• Close your eyes.
• Start by relaxing the muscles of your feet and work up your body relaxing muscles.
• Focus your attention on your breathing.
• Breathe in deeply and then let your breath out. Count your breaths, and say the number of the breath as you let it out (this gives you something to do with your mind, helping you to avoid distraction).
• Do this for ten or twenty minutes.

How do you keep up with your goals?

I have tried lots of different approaches. I would love to have everything in a digital world but it never seems to work. If I keep my tasks in an application, Outlook, Project, PlanPlus, an Excel spreadsheet or a Google doc they get lost behind the other windows on the screen.

The one solution I always come back to is the whiteboard.
Every morning I write out all the tasks I need to complete that day on the whiteboard. It is then my mission to cross those tasks off and clear the whiteboard. Some days I get all the tasks done early and I will add some more to the whiteboard. On other days I don’t finish them all and they roll over to the next day.
The whiteboard is always there, staring at me, telling me what must get done. It helps me stay focused on the jobs for the day.

Another way is to keep up with my tasks is list my action points on the spot in one booklet and then keep it with me all the time to keep up with my priorities. Then once a task is completed I just cross it out. But then like in my case I have my personal life to do list and then office work. More over the office work is also divided into three major and different areas of work.

I tried using Outlook to-do list and am still trying to use it after realising that you can actually import all your conversations and calendar invites in your to-do list and then start updating it as things progress. I find it useful but once I am out of office like at the weekend I forget. I am going to try sync it with my mobile but am not sure how effective would that be.

Another approach I took a few months back was creating an excel sheet and actually having one sheet per project it went well for few weeks but then a few days I was out side the office and couldn’t access the damn thing and was stuck with my memory and it was painful as I had to deliver outside the office and had all my sources in my beautiful and colourful excel file. After that experience I thought I shall not use excel though the idea of using Google docs was there but I was again dragged to good old notebook. But the problem with notebook is that once you are on next pages things from previous pages if pending are not carried forward and there is a huge chance to miss them.

Mind mapping and mind maps technique I have heard is quite good but how to effectively use it is still not clear. Can you share your experience how you keep up with the time management side of your jobs and how you keep up with your goals,tasks and projects? Thanks

What do you use and how do you make sure you stay focused, keep priorities and acheive your goals? Share please…