7 Ways to Slash Stress
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By Ces Catubay in Random Thoughts Published: Wednesday, 05 November 08 - 01:31 PM (GMT +08:00) |
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An article from Dr. Maoshing Ni
Chronic stress seems to be our national disease, especially these days. Millions suffer from symptoms of stress: nervous tension, restless sleep, difficulty focusing and remembering, irritability, and health complications. Generally speaking, stress speeds up aging. Learn the ways to manage stress, and you will look and feel younger.
1. Start your day with meditation
Spend time every day in meditative relaxation, with calming music if you desire. Start with five minutes and work your way to 15 or 20 minutes each day. Meditation is your number one way to reduce the output of stress hormones and avoid adrenal exhaustion, serious threats to your health.
Try this Stress Release Meditation: Breathe consciously, relax, and with each exhale focus on relaxing each area of your body in sequence, starting from the top of your head and moving all the way down to your toes.
2. Manage your mood with diet and herbs
Chinese Medicine considers the liver to be the center of your emotions. To allay stress and balance your emotions, keep your liver healthy and happy:
• Every day, eat lots of green leafy vegetables, barley grass, seaweed - anything high in chlorophyll - to keep the liver in good health.
• Take 500 mg dandelion daily for a month or longer to cleanse the liver and help release built-up anger.
• Take 400 mg white peony root daily for 1 to 3 months to soothe the liver and balance your mood.
• Schisandra berry protects the liver from chemicals and calms the spirit. For emotional anxiety, take 200 mg daily for a month.
Take these herbs anytime during the day and before bed in tea or capsule form. All the herbs are available from health food stores and Eastern medicine practitioners. Many of my patients have had remarkable results with Calm-Fort Elixir, an all-natural formulation of herbs to calm your spirit. For more information, click here.
3. Suppress stress with positive thinking
Instead of letting your thoughts run wild with anxiety, say affirmations to yourself, such as "I can handle the tasks I have ahead of me. I enjoy my responsibilities and fulfill them well." In fact, repeating positive affirmations can actually suppress the cortisol that the adrenal gland releases in times of stress - leaving you peaceful and calm.
4. Get stress out of your head and on paper
Writing in a journal every day can help you release thoughts and emotions that are causing you stress. Write from the position of an observer, recording your thoughts without any judgments. Just write it down so that you can see clearly what is going on inside. The next step is to identify the source of any anger or stress so you can begin to make changes. Looking into your thoughts give you the opportunity to gain insight into your feelings and reflect the underlying issues.
5. Unblock tension with exercise
The constant pressures of your job and family can lead to chronically elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which is a direct cause of muscle and joint pain. Clenched jaw? Lump in your throat? Chronic back and neck pain? These can all be manifestations of stress in your body. Release physical tension and clear these emotional blockages by using massage therapy, exercise, yoga, tai chi, or qi gong to get the circuits moving.
6. A Retreat to Avoid Burnout
Overloading your brain is a recipe for stress and health problems. Information overload is particularly harmful at midlife because we have less tolerance for stress, which can contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease. Press the "reset" button on yourself. Give yourself a retreat from the stresses of modern life. Take one day out of the seven-day week to minimize "screen" time. Don't watch TV, don't check email, and don't look at the news - it will be there tomorrow, and after a day of rest, you will be refreshed and ready to look at them.
7. Perspective from the Natural World
Use nature to reduce stress. Go outside, hike in the woods, walk on the beach, anything that puts you in contact with the natural world. It is difficult to feel stressed when you are surrounded by nature's abundance of vitality and wonder.
I hope you find the ways to have less stress! I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.
May you live long, live strong, and live happy!
5 Comments so far: |
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| Stress | Ar-wee-der-yet | 11/05/08 |
| natinal rice awareness month | yhen | 11/05/08 |
| Practice acceptance | Vishal P Rao | 11/06/08 |
| Slash Stress | Elite Health | 07/06/09 |
| Slash Stress | Elite Health | 07/06/09 |
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Top | Reply to this Title: Stress Author: Ar-wee-der-yet (http://kegler747.blogspot.com) Date Posted: 05 Nov 2008 03:54 PM (GMT +08:00) For me I have only 1 way to beat stress... A very good whole body massage with sauna ;) |
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Top | Reply to this Title: natinal rice awareness month Author: yhen (http://www.yhen1027.wordpress.com) Date Posted: 05 Nov 2008 06:09 PM (GMT +08:00) Did you know? • The Great Wall of China, known to be one of the eight wonders of the world, is made of rice. Its foundation is composed of plain sticky rice and compressed dirt. However, this has been reconstructed and repaired for a number of times, but parts of it with the rice and compressed dirt can still be seen today. NOVEMEBER IS NATIONAL RICE AWARENESS MONTH! more of this trivia at www.yhen1027.wordpress.com |
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Top | Reply to this Title: Practice acceptance Author: Vishal P Rao (http://www.stressmanagementforum.com/) Date Posted: 06 Nov 2008 06:51 PM (GMT +08:00) Most of the stress happens when we fight the present situation. When you learn to accept things as they are, stress cannot exist. Surrender and acceptance is the end goal of all spiritual practices. However, we need not have to wait to get there. You can start practicing acceptance rightaway. |
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Top | Reply to this Title: Slash Stress Author: Elite Health (http://www.elitehealth.com) Date Posted: 06 Jul 2009 02:34 PM (GMT +08:00) Really amazing information to reduce the stress level. Today in the time of recession, stress has become quite a frequent visitor to your health. An increased workload, over budget expenses , and many other factors levy much amount of stress on us. And because of it, there is a great amount of increase in the heart diseases and other mental problems. There is a very close relation between the heart based diseases and stress. According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the nation's single leading cause of death for both men and women. At least 58.8 million people in this country suffer from some form of heart disease. And on the whole, cardiovascular diseases (the combination of heart disease and stroke) kill some 950,000 Americans every year. In fact, according to the American Heart Association, almost 150,00 Americans killed by cardiovascular disease each year are under the age of 65. And one out of every 20 people below the age of 40 has heart disease. Depression is increasing day by day because of global economy meltdown these days. A lot of work load to the corporate has led them to be unhealthy. The over work load is disrupting their health schedules, and hence their health concerns are creating a problem. Many corporate employees are reporting to have a severe headache, and heart pains due to increased tension and stress being levied on them. Being one of them, I was having a severe pain on heart and head because of bundles of work being thrust on us. Many of the co-employees were experiencing the same, and many have already gone sick because of unscheduled work, high stress environment round the clock, no exercise, improper food. This was giving a distinguishable impact on the companies work efficiency. And at that time, a corporate wellness program served by a medical service provider elite health was initiated by the company. It was quite an appreciable step to hire a medical service to monitor the health of employees. This decision really ameliorated the working efficiency of the company, which was a direct advantage to the company. |
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Top | Reply to this Title: Slash Stress Author: Elite Health (http://www.elitehealth.com) Date Posted: 06 Jul 2009 02:35 PM (GMT +08:00) Really amazing information to reduce the stress level. Today in the time of recession, stress has become quite a frequent visitor to your health. An increased workload, over budget expenses , and many other factors levy much amount of stress on us. And because of it, there is a great amount of increase in the heart diseases and other mental problems. There is a very close relation between the heart based diseases and stress. According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the nation's single leading cause of death for both men and women. At least 58.8 million people in this country suffer from some form of heart disease. And on the whole, cardiovascular diseases (the combination of heart disease and stroke) kill some 950,000 Americans every year. In fact, according to the American Heart Association, almost 150,00 Americans killed by cardiovascular disease each year are under the age of 65. And one out of every 20 people below the age of 40 has heart disease. Depression is increasing day by day because of global economy meltdown these days. A lot of work load to the corporate has led them to be unhealthy. The over work load is disrupting their health schedules, and hence their health concerns are creating a problem. Many corporate employees are reporting to have a severe headache, and heart pains due to increased tension and stress being levied on them. Being one of them, I was having a severe pain on heart and head because of bundles of work being thrust on us. Many of the co-employees were experiencing the same, and many have already gone sick because of unscheduled work, high stress environment round the clock, no exercise, improper food. This was giving a distinguishable impact on the companies work efficiency. And at that time, a corporate wellness program served by a medical service provider elite health was initiated by the company. It was quite an appreciable step to hire a medical service to monitor the health of employees. This decision really ameliorated the working efficiency of the company, which was a direct advantage to the company. |
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