7. Mindful Meditation
What’s becoming extremely popular when experiencing stress, duress, and anxiety is to practice meditation, which is an age-old relaxation technique which naturally reduces the levels of cortisol in the brain, which is a stress inducing hormone.
Meditation, especially mindful meditation, does is helps reduce multiple dimensions of stress. Mindful meditation involves sitting comfortably while attempting to focus on breathing, while the mind’s attention remains in the present moment, without drifting off in the past or the future.
6. Deep Breathing Techniques
When under stress, what taking a few deep breaths does is naturally and immediately reduces tension. What deep breathing is known for, is it’s an extremely simple and effective relaxation technique. What deep breathing does is counters the effects of stress, this by slowing down the heart rate while lowering blood pressure.
What it also does is fortifies the blood, which centers the body while clearing the mind. The more oxygen that the body gets, the less tension that’s felt, so just breath.
5. Listen To Relaxing Music
What listening to music has is a tremendous relaxing effect on the mind. What slow soothing music does is plays a key role in decreasing the stress hormones in the body. What music also does is completely grabs your attention, which effectively acts as a distraction to stress.
Certain music is also meditative which initiates the relaxation response. What listening to music does is decreases post-stress response in the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. So when your stress is high, grab a set of headphones and listen to your favorite tunes.
4. Tai-Chi
The Chinese art of Tai-chi, is a self-paced series of naturally flowing slow body movements, which is also an effective method to relieve stress. The series of movements it uses forces you to concentrate, while consciously forcing you to circulate vital energy throughout the entire body, which helps calm the mind, while reducing stress.
Practicing tai-chi focuses on breathing and concentrating on the present moment. Tai-chi is low-impact, so it’s especially suitable for older adults who may not otherwise exercise. Tai-chi can be easily learned in a class environment.
