Stress Response And How To Counter It With Relaxation Techniques
Many years ago, Hans Selye, an endocrinologist known for his studies of the effects of stress on the human body, said, “it’s not stress that kills us; it is our reaction to it.” The source which catalyzes stress can be profound, such as losing a close loved one, losing a job, or sometimes being affected by an illness. Occasionally some minor hassles also happen, which trigger the fight and flight response known as the stress response.
Meditation has been an effective practice for relieving stress and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. People of all walks of life have developed awareness of how to tackle this whopping nuisance through meditation. The level of benefits it holds for our body is unbelievably unique and effective when done consistently.
Stress Response
Your body warns you to survive any immediate physical threat like an animal attack where your body prepares you to fight it. It is your body’s emergency response system.
But the stress that we face nowadays is primarily psychological, given the lifestyle, challenges, and conditions. These situations are ongoing and may trigger a stress response, leading to a state of chronic stress which leaves an enormous impact on your health and wellness.
For example, the stress hormone cortisol has been linked to increased visceral fat that is the fat around the organs. It is profoundly threatening to know the fact that these fat cells secrete hormones actively that shatter the liver, pancreas, and brain functioning, resulting in inflammation, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndromes. It also weakens the immune system and also leads to the early onset of age-related problems.
How To Respond to Stress
Whether or not the perceived stressor is valid, we are bound to respond to the pressures. The first thing that we need to question ourselves in a stressful situation is if the response is necessary or not. Secondly, we must remove this misconception that stress is something beyond one’s control. It is an internal response to any perceived uninformed threat; hence, one can control it.
Ways To Calm Your Mind
The stress response is generally short-lived because it affects your health, wearing down your body, health, and vitality. The ability to think is compromised, preventing you from seeing the entire perspective. You develop clear thinking on a broader level with a tranquil body. Research suggests methods that calm your mental state and make you feel good about your existence. These practices help to cope with the challenges that life throws at you.
- Adopting Self-Compassion: The ability to be conscious of your sentiments is self-compassion. It also involves the perception that we all make mistakes, and it’s part of human nature. It is about understanding oneself and kindly speaking to yourself as you would talk to a friend in distress.
- Practice Deep Breathing Exercise: Breathing exercises are one of the most potent relaxing techniques in a stressful situation. These deep breathing exercises activate the parasympathetic nervous system to bring the stress level down and calm your body. Proper breathing technique is normally taken for granted. There is no hard and fast rule to practice this breathing technique; you can perform it anywhere. All you need is a few minutes and a quiet place to stretch out.
How to do deep breathing
● Sit on a chair comfortably with your back straight, one hand on your stomach, and the other on your chest.
● Inhale a deep breath through your nose (count till 4), now the hand on your stomach must rise. Hold this breath.
● Exhale through your mouth to an extent where you contract your abdominal muscles, pushing as much air out as possible (count twice as long, e.g., up to a count of 6–8). The hand on your stomach must move in this process of exhalation.
● Continue to inhale and exhale in a similar pattern making sure that you pull and push the air out enough so that your stomach rises and falls. Slowly count as you exhale.
You may lie down if you are not comfortable doing this while sitting and place a book on your stomach instead of your hand while practicing deep breathing. Long exhales basically activate PNS (Parasympathetic Nervous System), reducing your blood pressure and heart rate.
4–7–8 Breath: A technique that was developed to induce sleep in people with insomnia or sleep disorders and stress to relax the patient. It is based on the yoga breathing principles by Andrew Weil.
● Place your tongue behind your upper teeth, make a whooshing sound while exhaling through your mouth.
● Close your mouth and inhale through your nose on the count of four in your head.
● Hold your breath for seven seconds.
● Exhale through your mouth, making the same whooshing sound for eight seconds. Repeat the process thrice.
3. Foster Authentic Relationships
As someone once said: “sometimes the value of relationships is understood by those who have no relation with us.” After shelter and food, it is a human need to connect with people positively. For your well-being, you need an ear after you practice self-compassion and deep breathing to feel connected.
Use Of Mindful Meditation
Sometimes you get hung up in a busy life and cannot figure out what tasks are essential in your life and what not; mindful meditation provides relief against the stressors.
Mindfulness is the baseline practice to counter stress by being vigilant of the situation around and avoiding a reactive or overwhelming response. It is about switching your focus to the present instead of dwelling in the past or future. There are many different health benefits connected to mindfulness; one of them is improved sleep. A study in 2015 reported that the people taking the mindfulness training program had refined sleep with improved fatigue and stress.
“Mindfulness is the awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally,” says Kabat-Zinn. “And then I sometimes add, in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.”
Meditation is the most popular technique to relieve stress in people from all walks of life. It is focusing on a single repetitive action like breathing or some repeated words. In this way, you overcome the tensions and help yourself choose what thoughts to focus on and ignore in the future.
Basics Of Mindful Meditation:
● Sit in a quiet place where you are neither disturbed nor distracted.
● Keep your back straight on a chair.
● Close your eyes and choose a focus point like breathing — feeling the sensation of inhalation through the nostrils and exhalation through the mouth during the rise and fall of the stomach — you can also choose a meaningful word that you can repeat throughout the process of meditation.
● If negative distracting thoughts come through your mind, you can divert attention toward the focal point without judgment.
Conclusion:
From a spiritual perspective, you can control the stress response by awakening your true self, the ultimate intent of relaxation techniques like meditation. It is essential to identify yourself, your emotions, and your personality to know pure consciousness. This awakening of true self is gradual, and you release your stress little by little. Specific techniques of deep breathing and meditation help in this regard.
References:
● https://www.verywellmind.com/meditation-4157199
● https://www.verywellmind.com/practice-basic-meditation-for-stress-management-3144789
● https://craighospital.org/resources/meditation-for-stress-management
● https://www.mindful.org/how-to-manage-stress-with-mindfulness-and-meditation/
● https://chopra.com/articles/7-ways-meditation-can-help-you-reduce-and-manage-stress
● https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/relaxation-techniques-for-stress-relief.htm
● https://mindworks.org/blog/how-does-meditation-reduce-stress/
