Well Man: coping with life

When you perceive a threat, your nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. This emergency response makes your heart pound faster, tightens muscles, raises blood pressure, quickens breath, and sharpens your senses. These physical changes increase your strength and stamina, preparing you to either fight or flee from the danger at hand. Stress management involves changing the stressful situation when you can, changing your reaction when you can’t, taking care of yourself, and making time for rest and relaxation.

You can’t completely eliminate stress from your life, but you can control how much it affects you. Relaxation techniques such as yoga, meditation, and deep breathing activate the body’s relaxation response, a state of restfulness that is the opposite of the stress response. When practiced regularly these activities lead to a reduction in your everyday stress levels and a boost in your feelings of joy and serenity. They also increase your ability to stay calm and collected under pressure. 

SIMPLE DE-STRESS ROUTINE

 Lie down, get comfortable, place your right hand on your belly button and allow mind thoughts to escape. Imagine an x-ray beam moving slowly up from your toes to your head, notice any tension in the muscles as the beam moves up, if you locate tension squeeze the muscle and relax.  

 Take a breath in through the nose to the count of three, feel the air raising your right hand as it travels down, pause, and release through the mouth to the count of 5. Pause and repeat 6 times to allow your mind some stillness.

 Doing this daily for 5 minutes reduces the stress in your life.

THE MESSAGE

Stress is a part of life, it is up to you whether you let it go.