STRESS - Lower Stress With This One Change

Lower Stress With This One Change

This constant habit could be the reason you're feeling overwhelmed

by Emily C. Johnson

Clicking over to your inbox every, oh, five minutes—or less? We all do it, but new research from the University of British Columbia discovered that simply opting out of that quick-check cycle can shrink your stress levels. “Our findings show that people felt less stressed when they checked their emails less often,” said Kostadin Kushlev in a release, the study’s lead author and a PhD candidate at UBC’s Department of Psychology.

Over the course of a week, a group of study subjects who were restricted to checking their email just three times per day were noticeably calmer and had significantly lower stress levels than the subjects who were told to check their email as often as they could. As you probably already know, disconnecting at work isn’t always so easy. Many study participants found it challenging to stay off their email, even though doing so had major psychological benefits, according to Kushlev.

To keep yourself feeling bubbly at your desk rather than harried, Kushlev advises checking emails in chunks just a few times a day instead of responding to each note as it comes in. When you feel the temptation to log on, remember that steering clear for just a little longer will boost your overall well-being. Worth it!

Source: http://www.naturalhealthmag.com/mind-body/lower-stress-one-change

STRESS CONTROL - 9 Ways to De-Stress

Stress, good and bad, is part of life. Here's how to control the worst of it so that good stress can work for us when we need it. 

by Dorothy Foltz-Gray

Zen is not my middle name. I apply obligation and pressure the way other people apply sunscreen—until it seeps through my pores. Then, my stress alarms start swirling like the red light on a police car: You’re late. The fridge is empty. The deadline was yesterday. Even on Sunday, when I lie, sarcophagus-like, under a pile of restful newspapers, at the back of my noggin I see the glow of the red light. My brain just won’t shut off to give me a blinking break from feeling like the cartoon character with her finger in an electrical socket, frazzled up to my fractured eyeballs. For once, I’d like to know just what all the stress is about. Why do our bodies churn like angry turbines? Is stress just some antiquated throwback we don’t need? Is its internal commotion helping or hurting us? Is it something we have no control over— or can we harness it, parceling it out only when we need its motivating force? I’m on a mission to answer these questions. 

Stress, THE GOOD GUY
So, what exactly is this monster called stress that keeps me up at night and driven by day? For starters, it’s not a monster—or at least it’s not trying to be. Stress, in the short term, is my defender, says Gabor Maté, M.D., a physician in Vancouver, British Columbia, and author of When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection (Wiley). “Acute stress is simply a necessary self-protective mechanism—the body’s fight or- flight response,” he says. “An emotion like fear may trigger the response, but it’s a physiological reaction that you may or may not be aware of.” This fight-or-flight response was at its best for our forebears facing hungry lions. A stress episode then was a short—albeit complicated—burst, revving up every body system to win a battle or get away. My forebear’s brain—in particular the frontal cortex, the brain’s executive center—sent a red alert to the hypothalamus, the hormonal control center, triggering a flood of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. “The cortisol elevates blood sugar levels, mobilizing energy for a quick escape,” says Maté. “The adrenaline provides more energy to fight.” At the same time, this cocktail of stress hormones prompts the heart to quadruple the amount of blood it pumps, from about 5 quarts to 20 quarts a minute, providing more energy. But the blood travels a different route, away from the skin, gut and kidneys to the muscles, so that energy can be used to fight or flee. Blood pressure, heart rate and breathing rates increase, the airways dilate, and the liver starts converting glycogen—the raw material of our body’s fuel—into glucose, or blood sugar, again for power to battle or retreat. In modern times, of course, we’re not confronting hungry animals. But our bodies react exactly the same way, say, if a car swerves into our lane or our child slips off the seesaw. Our entire body mobilizes to turn away from the feckless car or catch the falling child.

However, despite these crucial—sometimes lifesaving—benefits of stress, most of us obsess about it like we do the bad neighbor we can’t get rid of. And so do the media, either telling us constantly how stressed out we are or giving us something else to stress about. “Every ad I see is for some illness or disability in the body and spirits,” says Judith Orloff, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry at University of California, Los Angeles, and author of Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life (Three Rivers Press). “The media program us to be stressed out and sick.” 

When “good” stress GOES BAD
We no longer live in a world of the occasional threat. Our “lions”—24/7 access to information, long work hours, traffic jams, tough marriages, errant kids—are everywhere. But even seemingly innocuous aspects of our lives are stressors, says Brad Lichtenstein, N.D., a naturopathic physician and assistant professor at Bastyr University in Seattle. “Stress is any force exerted on the mind and body,” Lichtenstein explains. “So, by definition even gravity is stress, exercise is stress, eating is stress.” Unfortunately, our bodies haven’t caught up with modernity, and they are paying a scary price for the fairly constant fight-or-flight response our frenetic lives seem to require.

Candance Reaves, 55, a writer in Seymour, Tenn., spent 10 years caring for her dying mother. After her mother’s death two years ago, Reaves developed depression, anxiety, and a constant pain in her shoulders and neck. “That was where the stress manifested itself after my mother died,” she says. “It was the culmination of the stress that I felt being pulled one way or the other over 10 years. I didn’t have a life.” What Reaves endured—and what most of us experience to varying degrees—was unremitting stress, a modern phenomenon that takes a very different toll on our bodies than a quick burst of stress that resolves within minutes. The problem with a chronic stress response is that you produce so much cortisol that your adrenal glands—the factories that produce and regulate our stress hormones—poop out, says Lichtenstein. The result? Constant fatigue, emotional chaos and decreased immunity. In fact, a number of studies have shown that stress has a direct effect on the immune system. For example, research conducted at Ohio State University in 2008 found that older caregivers of family members with dementia did not respond well to vaccines, had less defense against viruses as well as more inflammation and accelerated aging of their cells compared with adults who were not caregivers.

A similar 2004 University of California, San Francisco, study of middle-aged mothers looked at their telomeres, DNA proteins that are markers of biological aging. Thirty-nine moms were caring for an ill child and 19 for a well one. The chronically stressed mothers with sick kids had shorter telomeres than the moms of healthy children; researchers surmised this was about a decade’s difference in terms of aging. And the effect of chronic stress on the immune system is just the start. “Adrenaline increases blood pressure and damages your heart, increasing your risk of stroke,” says Maté. “Cortisol gives you ulcers and puts fat on your body in a way that promotes heart disease and diabetes.” In fact, Maté believes that chronic stress plays some part in all chronic illnesses. The psychological ravages are just as brutal. As Judith Orloff notes, long-term stress depletes the body of serotonin, a feel-good neurotransmitter: “That makes you depressed and cloudy, so you can’t concentrate. With chronic adrenaline, you’re also hyper and more irritable. Everything becomes a big deal because it’s hard not to sweat the small stuff.

Leslie Levine, 51, a writer and mother of two in Northbrook, Ill., knows all too well the dangers of sweating the small stuff, as she stresses over whether to take store-bought or homemade cookies to a lake-side picnic. “I wish I was one of those mothers who wouldn’t think twice about buying the cookies at Costco. But me, I think, ‘Do I take the cookies out and wrap them in aluminum foil so it looks like I made them?’ ” Such indecision doesn’t come from wimpy genes. “It’s because sometimes I have to be three places at once,” says Levine. “I often find myself wondering, ‘What do I have to do today so that at 5 o’clock when my kids get home, I’m not a bitch on wheels?’ ” 

Trading bad stress FOR GOOD
What we need, of course, is to get a handle on stress, to ease it back like we do a fussy child. Our health will suffer if we don’t, and so will our ability to respond to stress when necessary. After all, good stress is our “on” light, the power behind meeting deadlines, getting the dinner cooked before the guests arrive, or exercising instead of reaching for the ice cream. It powers motivation.

Certainly, that’s true for Erin Munroe, 35, a child and adolescent therapist and mother of an 11-month-old in Boston: “I used to have a job with summers off, and I didn’t know how to function without some stress. I needed to find a way to be productive.” But Munroe hit her limits when her son cried nonstop for his first 14 weeks of life. “I was still working full time, taking care of my child, keeping the house clean and trying to be perfect. I was breastfeeding and felt really ill, and I ended up with a breast infection.” Munroe had reached the point, as Maté describes it, when the body says no. If we’re “on” all the time, our motor no longer revs. Thom E. Lobe, M.D., founder and director of the Beneveda Medical Group in Beverly Hills, Calif., describes it this way: “When we’re stressed, our adrenals glands are spent. And then we press the gas when we really need to go and nothing happens.” In a sense, we become less attuned to our own body’s alarms, says Kim Turk, LMBT, director of massage services at Duke Integrative Medicine in Durham, N.C. “It’s called somatic numbing—when the mind and body are completely disconnected,” she says. “Like a mom in a grocery store whose kid is yelling at her but she doesn’t hear him anymore, we stop listening to our bodies. Or when you’re tight in your neck and shoulders, but you have no idea that you are.” 

So, how to get to our happy place? We know that stress, good and bad, is part of life. So how can we control the worst of it so that good stress can work for us when we need it? Here are the key steps experts insist on.

1. Run a priority scan
Once you know what’s keeping your lights on 24/7, you can figure which ones to turn low. When her mother became ill and died seven years ago, Rebecca Brooks, 40, a mom of two sons and president of a public relations firm in New York City, knew family had to be her focus. “I realized then that I couldn’t manage everything myself,” she says. Brooks learned to delegate and prioritize. She beefed up her staff, and she started leaving work at the office. “Now when the kids have something school-related, I’m always there,” she says.

2. Listen to your gut
“Part of stress reduction is learning to listen to what your gut tells you about your life, about people, about a situation,” says Orloff. “Ask, ‘Does my energy go up or down when I’m around this person? My stress level? How do I feel about this job? Did I leave the job interview feeling sick?’ Factor the answers into your decisions.” Mary Saunders, L.Ac., an acupuncturist in Boulder, Colo., agrees. “You have to ask yourself, ‘What’s going on that makes me feel this way—overwhelmed, bitchy, shorttempered?’ ” she says. In other words, you have to face what’s stressing you out rather than turn away from it.

3. Calm your system down
Of course, it may take more than a little introspection to right your cart. Candance Reaves tried antidepressants, poetry and physical therapy before hitting on a yoga-meditation class that restored what grief and fatigue had robbed. “The class allows me to have that out-of- the-body experience when I can look at things differently and really focus,” she says. “When I feel stressed now, I sit down and do deep breathing for 10 minutes. At the end I’m focused about what I need to get done first. It gives me energy and peace.” Even three-minute meditations can re-center you, says Orloff. She practices them throughout her day—a way of turning off stress and turning on endorphins, the body’s feel-good neurochemicals. “Find a comfortable place,” she says. “Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and begin to quiet your thoughts. Picture yourself breathing in calm, breathing out stress, and find an image that relaxes you—mine is the night sky. This quickly turns off the stress response because you’re slowing down your system.” 

4. Drop stressful “de-stressors”
One person’s de-stressor is another person’s toxin. Driving to a gym, circling for a parking space, pumping iron and returning to a ticketed car, for example, isn’t my idea of relaxing. Erin Munroe had a similar experience. “I was taking hot yoga at 5 a.m. to help me chill out. It was all type-A people and very competitive. The class made me crazy; I would get mad that someone could do a Tree pose better than me. Now I take hatha yoga with people in sweatpants and I’ve realized I don’t need to exercise 9,000 hours a week.”

5. De-stress your diet
Even if we can’t change the traffic or long work hours that shred our nervous systems, we can change habits that frazzle them. For instance, I love coffee. But adding stimulants to my body is like adding rocket fuel: I orbit all night. So, I limit myself to one cup, switch to black tea after that and sleep like the stress-free baby I’m not. That’s an approach Terry Courtney, M.P.H., L.Ac., dean of the School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine at Bastyr University, advises for her frazzled clients. Caffeine stimulates the same stress hormones—cortisol and adrenaline—you’re trying to reduce. And sugar offers an energy rush, soon followed by fatigue as your blood sugar drops. “You’re left without resources for building energy on your own,” says Courtney. “Caffeine also interrupts sleep, so you wake up tired—wanting more caffeine and sugar.” But Courtney doesn’t recommend going cold turkey, knowing she’d give a coffee lover like me the shakes. “Just look at your patterns and see what’s reasonable,” she says.

6. Supplement your stress 
Take a good multivitamin, one that includes a B vitamin complex with folate, says Donna Bryant Winston, R.N., an herbalist and nurse at Donegan Clinic in Bethlehem, Pa. “These vitamins help in the production of serotonin and dopamine in the brain, which relieve anxiety.” Vitamin B-rich foods include whole grains, nuts, dried fruits and eggs. Folate helps stabilize our mood and can be found in dark leafy green vegetables and beans. Turkey contains an amino acid called L-tryptophan, which also helps increase serotonin levels and calm us. Saunders also recommends magnesium. “It’s probably the best supplement for calming the nervous system overall,” she says. “It’s very alkalizing—and the more alkaline the system, the more resistant the body is to illness and stress. To alkalize the body, limit highly acidic foods (coffee, alcohol, meat and sugar) and load up on highly alkaline foods (vegetables and fruit). 

7. Let the sunshine in
Sunshine stimulates the production of vitamin D in our bodies, essential for replenishing the adrenal glands, says Lobe. Go outside for 20 minutes a day without sunscreen or sunglasses; Lobe also recommends taking 4,000 to 8,000 IU of vitamin D a day.

8. Exercise
“When I’m really stressed, exercise is a big outlet—and I have a better workout,” says Brooks, who spins, walks, kick-boxes or does yoga before work five days a week. “It helps me get my aggression out.” Saunders also exercises regularly, practicing yoga and taking daily hourlong walks. “In Chinese medicine, we say that physical movement helps to move the qi, or energy, through the system.” In fact, according to a 2010 University of California, San Francisco, study of stressed-out women, most of whom were caregivers, the women who exercised vigorously for an average of just 13 minutes a day had fewer signs of aging—the longer telomeres again—than their inactive counterparts.

9. Cultivate active rest
That’s very different from collapsing at the end of the day, says Lichtenstein. “That’s just exhaustion,” he says. Active rest is spending time relaxing in a way that rejuvenates you—hanging out with friends, listening to music, reading or meditating. “All of these are a form of meditation that gives focused attention to the moment.” In a 2009 study conducted at West Virginia University, 35 stressed-out people were taught mindfulness techniques, such as deep breathing and meditation. At the end of three months, they had a 54 percent drop in psychological distress and a 46 percent drop in medical symptoms (high blood pressure, aches and pains among them). The control group had little reduction of stress and an increase in medical symptoms. 

Use stress to your advantage
“There’s a difference between a positive growth response to stress and using stress as a defense,” says Saunders. “If it’s the kind of stress that promotes growth, I’m all for it.” For instance, Saunders sometimes finds long meditation retreats stressful. “But I know that inner work is promoting growth,” she says. That’s a different stress than forcing herself to do something just because she thinks she should. “I hear a lot of women say I should do this job or keep this marriage going,” Saunders adds. “We have this idea that it’s selfish to say no. But you have to learn to say no, to set boundaries so you have time to do what sustains you.” All of this stress dissection has been strangely calming. With a little attention from me—some slow breathing, a pinch of thankfulness, a no-weekend rule about e-mails— I’m finally realizing that stress doesn’t have to be my personal rumba 24/7. I may always have a higher idle than I’d like, but knowing that I can make some stress work for me injects a little pride in my two-step. It helps me relax. And yes, even stress less. 

Source: http://www.naturalhealthmag.com/health/9-ways-de-stress

STRESS RELIEF - Self-Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy

This page is part of a series of articles covering relaxation techniques especially suited to managing and reducing stress.  If you are worried about your stress levels or those of somebody you know then you should seek professional help from a doctor or counsellor.  Stress left untreated can be dangerous to your health and wellbeing.

Self-hypnosis or hypnotherapy can be a successful way of reducing stress and opening the mind to new ideas or thought processes, especially when dealing with problem behaviour such as certain addictions. 

Hypnotherapy is essentially a way of reprogramming how we think.  There are many self-hypnosis resources available including CDs, tapes, MP3s and other recordings.  Before using any such materials ensure that the recordings have been produced by a reputable and trained hypnotherapist.   Before attempting any self-hypnosis read this page fully and understand the processes involved.

A Brief History of Modern Hypnosis

There exists a lot of scepticism and suspicion around the subject of hypnotism, especially in Western cultures. This scepticism stems partly from hypnosis being used as a form of entertainment and also from some of the original theories on the subject. 

Franz Anton Mesmer is often considered the forefather of modern hypnosis theory and probably responsible for some of the scepticism surrounding the subject.  Mesmer, a German physician, had a keen interest in astronomy and believed that there was an invisible force - a channel for energy - to be transferred between all objects in the universe.  This ‘cosmic energy’ coming from celestial bodies could be harnessed by one person to influence the behaviour of another.  Mesmer called the result of this energy transference ‘mesmerism’ which explains the origin of the word ‘mesmerise’.  We now know that Mesmer’s theory was utter nonsense but his ideas may still influence how hypnosis and hypnotherapy are regarded today.

Today, however, hypnotism has been accepted by conventional medicine as a way to treat a number of problems including: relieving stress and therefore high-blood pressure, migraines, sleep disorders and helping people to beat addictions, such as smoking.  Furthermore, hypnosis and hypnotherapy can be used to help boost self-esteem and personal confidence as well as to overcome related problems, such as a fear of public speaking.  Today hypnosis is taught in colleges worldwide and has become one of the most popular and widely known complimentary medical techniques.

How Hypnotherapy Works

Based on the work of Sigmund Freud - the human mind can be split into three distinct areas of consciousness; the conscious, subconscious and unconscious.  It can be useful to think of each part of the mind on a scale of depth. 

Freud believed that the conscious mind is the top or shallowest part of the mind and is responsible for making sense of the things we are directly aware of – like stress levels. 

The subconscious mind is below consciousness most of the time, a deeper level – it is therefore not so easily accessible and controls how we may feel or react to certain situations or circumstances, based on what we have learnt through experience, in the past.    It also controls and regulates our essential bodily functions, such as breathing. 

The unconscious mind is the deepest part of our mind and is much more difficult to reach – it can include suppressed memories of traumatic events. 

Hypnotism works by reaching a relaxed state whereby it is possible to sink deeper into our minds and rewrite or reprogram our subconscious. 

Through physical and mental relaxation, self-hypnosis can allow people to bypass their conscious minds and introduce positive thoughts and ideas into their unconscious.  Upon ‘awakening’ from the hypnotic state the new thoughts and ideas in the subconscious will, eventually, affect the conscious mind and can, in turn, lead to changed behaviours.  

Hypnotherapy does not claim to be a ‘quick fix’, such methods require perseverance and practice in order for the subconscious mind to pick up and apply the new messages.

Using Self-Hypnosis or Hypnotherapy

In order for self-hypnosis or prescribed hypnotherapy to work successfully it is important to approach the process with an open mind.  To do this you need to:

• WANT to be hypnotised
• Not be overly sceptical
• Not be frightened of being hypnotised
• Not over-analyse the processes involved

You also need to think about why you are going to use self-hypnosis and what messages you want to give yourself – what ideas you wish to plant into your subconscious.  Work on some short statements that you are going to use when you reach a hypnotic state. 

Such statements need to be:

• Genuine and honest – you will not be successful in planting ideas of things you really do not want to do or achieve into your subconscious.
• Positive – your statements need to be of a positive nature
• Simple – your statements need to be very straightforward no more than a few words long

Some examples of personal hypnotic statements include:

• To relieve stress at work you may use: ‘I am relaxed at work’
• To help with an addictive habit, like smoking, you may use: ‘I am a non-smoker’
• To help reduce your nervousness before a public speaking event you may choose: ‘I am a confident speaker’

Remember these statements are messages to your own subconscious – use ‘I’, focus on specific actions and always prepare your statements as present-tense facts.  Concentrate on one or two statements to start with – commit these to memory and focus on them in your mind.

Steps to Enable Self-Hypnosis

Before you attempt self-hypnosis for the first time it is useful to have told somebody else in the nearby vicinity what you are doing.  Reaching a hypnotic state is a little like sleeping and you may be more comfortable telling somebody else that you are going for a nap.  By telling somebody else, you are not likely to be disturbed or worried that you may be disturbed.  Part of the point of self-hypnosis is that you will become less aware of your immediate surroundings – like when you sleep – so if there was an emergency then somebody nearby will be able to ‘wake’ you.

1. To start the process you need to feel physically relaxed and comfortable.  Try using a basic relaxation technique such as the one outlined on our Relaxation Techniques page.
2. Find an object that you can focus your vision and attention on – ideally this object will involve you looking slightly upwards on the wall or ceiling in front of you.
3. Clear your mind of all thoughts and just focus on your object.  This is obviously quite hard to achieve but take your time to let thoughts leave you.
4. Become aware of your eyes, think about your eyelids becoming heavy and slowly closing.  Focus on your breathing as your eyes close, breathe deeply and evenly.
5. Tell yourself that you will relax more every time you breathe out.  Slow your breathing and let yourself relax deeper and deeper with every breath.
6. Use your mind’s eye to visualise a gentle up and down or sideways movement of an object.  Perhaps the hand of a metronome or a pendulum – anything that has a regular, slow and steady swing.  Watch the item sway backwards and forwards or up and down in your mind’s eye.
7. Softly, slowly and monotonously count down from ten in your head, saying I am relaxing after each number.  ’10 I am relaxing’…  ‘9 I am relaxing’ etc.
8. Believe and remind yourself that when you finish counting down you will have reached your hypnotic state.
9. When you have reached your hypnotic state it is time to focus on the personal statements that you prepared.  Focus on each statement – visualise it in your mind’s eye, repeat it in your thoughts.  Stay relaxed and focused.
10. Relax and clear your mind once more before bringing yourself out of your hypnotic state.
11. Slowly but increasingly energetically count up to 10.  Reverse the process you used before when you counted down into your hypnotic state.  Use some positive message between each number, as you count.  ‘1, when I awake I will feel like I have had a full night’s sleep’ … etc.
12. When you reach 10 you will feel fully awake and revived!  Slowly let your conscious mind catch up with the events of the day and continue feeling refreshed.

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The more you practise and repeat the self-hypnosis routine the more successful it will become and the more easily you will be able to reach a hypnotic state. 

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Remember hypnotherapy does work for a lot of people and it may work for you – the power is in the believing.

Source: SkillsYouNeed.com

STRESS RELIEF - Music Therapy

This page is part of a series of articles covering relaxation techniques especially suited to managing and reducing stress.  If you are worried about your stress levels or those of somebody you know then you should seek professional help from a doctor or counsellor.  Stress left untreated can be dangerous to your health and wellbeing.

This page provides information about how you can use music to help you relax or release tension, a way to manage or reduce stress. 

There is an important distinction between personal music therapy, as covered on this page – which you can use at any time to aid relaxation - and professional music therapists.  Music therapists are highly trained individuals who work with clients of all ages and use musical instruments and voice to enable people to express their emotions. 

For more information about the work of professional music therapists see:

• The British Association of Music Therapy - http://www.bamt.org
• The American Music Therapy Association - http://www.musictherapy.org/

How Sound Affects Us

Sound therapy involves using sound waves to heal the body and mind. 

Such sounds are not what we traditionally think of as music but usually continuous tones created by drums, gongs or more modern ultrasonic machines.  The theory behind sound therapy is that all of our bodies’ cells vibrate at a natural frequency.  These frequencies can become misaligned or otherwise changed through illness or physical stress. 

By subjecting the body, or part of the body, to a sound at a particular frequency such problems can be improved.  An example is playing back a recording of a particular sound at a predetermined and constant frequency to treat muscular aches and pains, which may have been caused by stress. 

Some people claim that sound therapy works well for them, while others remain more sceptical.  Regardless of the effectiveness of sound therapy there is little doubt that music can affect us and can be used effectively to aid relaxation and stress relief.

The Power of Music

It is a well-established fact that music can alter our mood, stir emotions and may even lead us to behave in unusual ways.  There are many ways that music can make us feel, including: 

• Patriotic – National anthems and other music associated with a country or geographic area.
• Loyalty – Music and sounds associated with sports events, schools, clubs and other organisations.
• Spiritual – Hymns, chants, gospel and other music and sounds associated with religion or the divine.
• Nostalgic – Music can remind us of the past, both good times and bad times.
• Love – Music can be used to express love and as a sign of affection.
• Hate – Music can be used in war and violence and to promote anger.
• Energetic – Rhythms in music can make us tap our feet, clap our hands and dance.  Music can aid physical exercise.
• Happy – Music can lift our mood, make us smile, laugh and sing along.
• Sad – Music can make us feel melancholy, gloomy or even depressed.  Music can make us cry.
• Excited – Music is often used to excite us, like at a funfair or during some tense moment in a movie.
• Irritated – Music we don’t like can irritate us, as can an ‘ear-worm’ a tune that gets stuck in your head and is repeated over and over.
• Unexplained – Sometimes music can cause more unexplained physical reactions, like the hairs standing up on the back of your neck or goosebumps which are more commonly associated with strong feelings of nostalgia, pleasure, euphoria, astonishment or awe.

The list above is by no means complete, music and sound affect us in all conceivable ways – even when we are not fully listening or paying attention.  It should be clear that music can also, therefore, be used as an effective relaxation technique – a way to reduce stress levels and release tensions.

What Works for You?

One problem with using music as a tool for relaxation is that everybody has different tastes.  Musical styles and genres are so diverse that it may be difficult to find a particular style that best suits you.  Another problem is that different styles may help you to relax at different times and in different ways.  A warm, candle-lit bath whilst listening to soft classical music may work sometimes, whereas loud rock music may help you to release pent up tensions through dancing and/or singing along.

It is important, therefore, that you find out what sort of music can help you and in what circumstance.  Work on increasing your musical repertoire to find styles, artists, composers and genres that you enjoy listening to.  Listen to different radio stations online or over the air, buy or borrow new music and experiment; you may discover a whole new area of music that appeals to you.

Personal Music Therapy

Relaxation with music does not necessarily mean sitting or lying still whilst listening, although this can be particularity relaxing.  Enjoying the therapeutic benefits of music can be achieved in much more active situations, during sport, at work, while you cook, while gardening – with modern technology such as MP3 players and smart-phones music has become truly portable and customisable it can be enjoyed anywhere.

By listening to music – this means consciously listening, not just hearing music – you occupy your brain and distract it from other thoughts.  If you are stressed about something then it is likely that your problems, worries and concerns occupy a lot of your brain time making you tired and irritable – classic symptoms of stress.   Music can offer a healthy and low-cost escape, lifting your mood and maybe even making you smile.

Some ways to enjoy music:

• Fully relaxing – try using the basic relaxation technique outlined on our Relaxation Techniques main page.  Use headphones or noise reducing in-ear buds to listen to some soothing music.  Set the volume at a comfortable level for you, neither too loud nor too quiet.  Relax and concentrate on listening to the music.
• Overcoming a fear – a good example of this is on an aeroplane.  Many people have certain anxieties about flying, especially during take-off and landing.  Use your headphones or ear-buds and close your eyes or use an eye mask – choose some soothing music to help you overcome your fear.  Remember your fellow passengers, the noise of the plane may cancel out a lot of your music but being able to hear somebody else’s headphones can be very annoying.
• Overcoming frustration – being stuck in traffic, especially if you are running late for work or another appointment is, as you will know if it has ever happened to you, very frustrating.  Try putting some of your favourite music on in the car (when appropriate) – turn the volume up and sing or hum along.  This can be a great way to alleviate the stress of such situations.
• While you exercise – exercise itself is a good stress reliever and can help your mind relax – your endorphin (anti-stress hormone) levels increase while your cortisol (stress hormone) levels decrease.  Exercising to music can help take your mind away from the fact you are exercising, especially if you find it boring or physically hard, so you actually get a better workout.  If you have ever been to the gym you will notice how most people exercise to music.  Pick music with a beat that matches the rhythm of your exercise, if you concentrate on the music your body will slip into a rhythm and you will achieve your goals more easily.
• Whenever is appropriate – try listening to your music more frequently, whenever you can and is appropriate to your surroundings.

Vocal Toning

Vocal toning is a method of using your voice to help create inner calm and reduce stress. 

Vocal toning is not singing and therefore your ability to sing or whether or not you consider yourself ‘tone-deaf’ is not relevant.   Toning is based on the idea that we have many pent-up emotions and frustrations. We are taught, from an early age, to be quiet in most day-to-day situations, making loud noises is discouraged or seen as a sign of anger or aggression.  Toning provides a way of freeing suppressed feelings and emotions through the release of sound, encouraging us to make random loud noises and sounds.

Try some vocal toning to see if it works for you.  Make long, draw out, loud noises: shouts, grunts, screeches, hums.  Don’t worry about what you sound like, just make the noises that feel right to you.  As with laughter therapy, vocal toning can help reduce adrenaline and cortisol the main hormones associated with stress.

STRESS RELIEF - Laughter Therapy as Stress Relief

Laughing is an excellent way to reduce stress in our lives, and can help you to cope with and survive a stressful lifestyle.

Laughter provides a full-scale workout for your muscles and unleashes a rush of stress-busting endorphins. Since our bodies cannot distinguish between real and fake laughter, anything that makes you giggle will have a positive impact.  You do not need to be happy or have a sense of humour to benefit from a good laugh.

Laughter therapy aims to get people laughing in both group and individual sessions and can help reduce stress, make people and employees happier and more committed, as well as improve their interpersonal skills.

Laughter therapist Keith Adams explains the background of therapeutic laughter.

Therapeutic Laughter

By way of introduction, I am a member of the UK Laughter Network.  We are a group of professionals with a common goal to bring more happiness and laughter into people’s lives through therapeutic laughter. 

Many individuals have contributed to the history of modern therapeutic laughter. Here are just a few:

Norman Cousins, celebrated political writer

In 1979, Cousins published a book Anatomy of an Illness in which he described a potentially fatal disease he contracted in 1964 and his discovery of the benefits of humour and other positive emotions in battling the disease. He found, for example, that ten minutes of mirthful laughter gave him two hours of pain-free sleep. His story baffled the scientific community and inspired a number of research projects.

Dr William F. Fry, psychiatrist, Stanford University, California

Dr Fry began to examine the physiological effects of laughter in the late 1960s and is considered the father of ‘gelotology’ (the science of laughter). Dr Fry proved that mirthful laughter provides good physical exercise and can decrease your chances of respiratory infections. He showed that laughter causes our body to produce endorphins (natural painkillers).

Dr Lee Berk, Loma Linda University Medical Centre

Inspired by Norman Cousins, Dr Berk and his team of researchers from the field of psycho-neuro-immunology (PNI)studied the physical impact of mirthful laughter. In one study heart attack patients were divided into two groups: one half was placed under standard medical care while the other half watched humorous videos for thirty minutes each day. After one year the ‘humour’ group had fewer arrhythmias, lower blood pressure, lower levels of stress hormones, and required lower doses of medication. The non-humour group had two and a half times more recurrent heart attacks than the humour group (50% vs. 20%).

Dr Hunter (Patch) Adams

Immortalized in film by Robin Williams, Patch inspired millions of people by bringing fun and laughter back into the hospital world and putting into practice the idea that “healing should be a loving human interchange, not a business transaction”. He is the founder and director of the Gesundheit Institute, a holistic medical community that has been providing free medical care to thousands of patients since 1971. He is the catalyst for the creation of thousands of therapeutic care clowns worldwide.

Dr Annette Goodheart

Goodheart is a psychotherapist and inventor of laughter therapy and laughter coaching. For 36 years she has been using laughter to treat cancer, AIDS, depression, and other illnesses and been teaching at universities, schools, companies, organizations and public events, bringing laughter to every part of the world.

Dr Madan Kataria, creator of Laughter Yoga

In March 1995 this medical doctor from Mumbai, India was writing an article Laughter - The Best Medicine for a health journal. In particular, he was impressed by Norman Cousins’ book Anatomy of an Illness and the research work by Dr Berk. Dr Kataria discovered that the body cannot differentiate between acted and genuine laughter. He then created a range of laughter exercises including elements of role-play and other techniques from his days as an amateur dramatic actor. Realizing the importance of child-like playfulness, he developed further techniques to stimulate this within a group.  Laughter Yoga was born and is now accepted all over the world.

Oxford University/Royal Society

In September 2011, academics from Oxford University published research demonstrating that continuous laughter significantly increases people’s pain threshold, by as much as 10%. 

Laughter Yoga

Laughter Yoga includes four things:  clapping in rhythm to ‘ho-ho-ha-ha-ha’, breathing and stretching, child-like play and laughter exercises.  Laughter comes from the body not the mind.  The picture below is of one of my participants at the Liverpool Mutual Homes workshop – it shows just how infectious laughter yoga can be.

When you take part in a laughter workshop you get a release of endorphins, giving you a "feel good” factor; the whole body relaxes and stress and tension is reduced.  You also get an aerobic exercise.  Laughter tones your muscles and improves your respiration – and your immune system is boosted which helps you to resist disease.

You can easily acquire the skills to lead a laughter yoga workshop.  You will need an outgoing personally, be a good communicator and quite happy to lead a group of people into laughter. 

For more information on my therapeutic laughter workshops for business, public and third sector organisations, as well as for special social events, visit Keith's website www.laughteraspirations.co.uk.

Keith Adams - Laughter Aspirations

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Keith Adams is a member of the UK Laughter Network, a group of professionals with a common goal to bring more happiness and laughter into people’s lives through therapeutic laughter.  For information on training courses and therapeutic laughter workshops in your area, visit the website of the UK Laughter Network.

Source: SkillsYouNeed.com

STRESS RELIEF - Aromatherapy

This page is part of a series of articles covering relaxation techniques especially suited to managing and reducing stress.  If you are worried about your stress levels or those of somebody you know then you should seek professional help from a doctor or counsellor.  Stress left untreated can be dangerous to your health and wellbeing.

This page examines how our sense of smell can help us relax and affect our perceptions of personal wellbeing.  It has long been known that smells and aromas affect us but relatively little is known about what the sense of smell actually is and why we find some scents pleasant and some unpleasant.  Compared to many animals, notably dogs, our sense of smell is underdeveloped - we have evolved to rely more heavily on our other senses, especially vision.  Everything around us has some kind of a scent including, importantly, us.

Personal Scent

We all have our own unique scent, most of the time we are unaware of it but research has shown that our perceptions of each other are in part based on our personal aroma, not just our physical appearance or our behaviour or ability to communicate. 

It is claimed that our personal scent can be more important in dating or choosing a partner than what we look like.  Our personal smell can make us ‘look’ more appealing to potential partners.  Personal scent has nothing to do with the perfume, aftershave, deodorant, soap, laundry detergent or other cosmetics we use, despite what advertisements for such products may claim.  Personal scent is unique – our base or ‘naked’ smell, we cannot change it although we may sometimes be able to temporarily mask it.  Our personal smell transmits information about ourselves, information that is subconsciously interpreted by others.

The Power of Smell

Smells are important in many industries, perfumery, wine-making, coffee roasting, food-production, cosmetics and tobacco to list some of the more obvious ones.  Perfumers and wine-tasters, for example, have developed language and systems to try to accurately describe smells – perfumers use the term ‘notes’ to describe the lifespan of a perfume and how the scent changes as the perfume evaporates.  Wine producers use the word, ‘bouquet’, to describe the subtleties in the aroma and taste of a wine.

There are lots of examples of when smell can affect our thoughts and emotions in everyday life.  There exists a close relationship between scents, emotion and memories.  Many people suddenly and vividly recall distant memories when exposed to certain scents - the perfume worn by their mother, for example, can remind them of childhood.  Certain aromas affect us psychologically, the smell of lemon is said to increase our perception of personal wellbeing.  Supermarkets use the smell of freshly baked bread to make us feel hungry and buy more food, the smell of frankincense incense in a church can help us to feel more relaxed and in touch with our spiritual side.

Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy uses essential oils in a controlled way to promote personal wellbeing.  Essential oils are concentrated, naturally occurring, chemicals extracted from flowers, trees and other plants.  These oils are harvested very carefully from specific plant parts, like the flower, at specific times of the growing cycle.  Potentially vast quantities of plant material is required to produce small quantities of essential oil.

Approximately 150 kilograms of lavender is required to make one litre of lavender essential oil.

For this reason essential oils can be expensive but usually only small quantities are required for therapeutic benefits. Some essential oils offer physical as well as emotional benefits and can be applied topically as antiseptics and anti-inflammatories - lavender oil, for example, is useful for treating minor burns.  Aromatherapy can be used for many ailments, but is commonly used to aid relaxation, promote calmness and reduce stress.

Essential Oil Buying Tips

As essential oils can be expensive. These tips can help you minimise the expense and gain maximum worth:

• Buy the best available.  Although many places sell essential oils, both online and in stores, the grade of such oils can vary.  The quality of the oil is essential for maximum therapeutic benefit, do not buy the cheapest but insist on the best quality.  Ideally buy organic, undiluted oils that have been produced from fresh and sustainable sources and are sold by reputable dealers.
• Buy only a little.  Apart from the financial implications there are two reasons why you should only buy small quantities of essential oil.  Only a very small quantity, a few drops, of essential oil is needed at a time.  Essential oils lose their potency quickly and have short shelf lives, buy fresh and use quickly.
• Store carefully.  Keep your oils in a cool, dark place as direct sunlight and heat can destroy their delicate chemical properties. 
• Favour pure essential oils over mixes.  There are lots of essential oil mixes available for sale, these use a combination of oils to help with various ailments.  As the chemical structure of essential oils is delicate premixed solutions are not always the most effective.  Buy pure single oils and mix them yourself.

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Which Essential Oils to Buy?

There are literally hundreds of different essential oils on the market, many of them will help you to relax.  You may need to experiment to see which oils work best for you. The most common and most available essential oils to aid relaxation help relieve stress include:

• Lavender - One of the most common essential oils, lavender oil can help to relieve headaches and promote good sleep.
• Camomile – Helps relieve tension and promotes relaxation and sleep.
• Bergamot – A sweet citrus fruit used in earl grey tea, bergamot essential oil can help relieve some symptoms of depression, can aid digestion as well as generally helping to reduce tense muscles.
• Jasmine - Helps to lift your mood and relieve stress and depression.  Jasmine has also been used as an aphrodisiac and is said to increase libido.
• Frankincense – Commonly used to help combat stress, frankincense provides a warm and soothing aroma that can also help to calm respiratory problems such as asthma.
• Sandalwood – Can help to calm and balance emotions, relieve tension and calm the digestive system.

Using Aromatherapy to Help you Relax.

Essential oils can be dangerous if used in large quantities, they can cause skin irritations or allergies and be poisonous if ingested. Certain oils can be dangerous to health in other ways.  Before using any essential oils always read the label or consult a qualified aromatherapist.

There are two main ways that aromatherapy and essential oils can be used at home to help you to relax:  through massage and through inhalation, using a diffuser or other medium.

Massage

Massage by itself can be a useful relaxation technique, massage with essential oils can further enhance the experience.

Essential oils should always be blended with a carrier oil before they are used in massage.  These carrier oils dilute the essential oils and can help with absorption.  Common carrier oils include almond, avocado and jojoba, extra virgin olive oil can also be used.

Carrier oils are not potent like essential oils and are used in greater quantities, care should be taken to find the most suitable carrier oil for you.

The general rule of thumb is to mix a few drops of essential oil with a teaspoon of carrier oil – different essential oils will require different dilution depending on their potency, read the label.

Massage is usually most effective before bed and can help promote a good night’s sleep. 

Make sure you are warm and your skin is dry.  You can use self-massage or ask somebody else to massage you.  For self-massage work on your forehead and face, shoulders, hands, feet and the small of your back.  If you have somebody to give you a massage then as well as the areas mentioned above get them to work on your back.

Inhalation

You can use inhalation to gain benefits from essential oils.  Commonly this is achieved by using a diffuser – a diffuser is anything that enables the essential oil to be evaporated and dispersed into the air. 

Although there are many different ways of diffusing essential oils some of the most common include:

• Heat diffusers use the heat of a candle or other source to warm the oil and disperse it into the air.  These are commonly available and can be inexpensive.
• Mist diffusers are used to create a fine mist in the air.  Mix your essential oil with water and use the mist diffuser to add fragrance and a calming effect to the room.
• Passive diffusers can be anything that lets oil naturally evaporate into the air.  You can place a few drops of oil onto your pillow or a tissue, for example.  You can also use a saucer or other ceramic vessel as a passive diffuser.

You can also apply a few drops of essential oil to a warm bath, not only will your skin absorb the oils but you will also benefit from the relaxing aroma.  If you can’t take a bath then put a few drops of essential oil into a bowl of hot water, cover your head with a towel over the bowl and inhale the steam.

Source: SkillsYouNeed.com