When you're stressed, the benefits of relaxation can affect your physical, mental, and emotional health. Spending time on yourself for relaxation is as important as brushing your teeth. Implementing the following relaxation tips can improve your mood, help your heart, and much more.
Stress, whether it is caused by stressors at work, in the family, or from too much physical exertion, causes the body to create a fight-or-flight hormone response. These hormones can raise the heart rate and breathing rate and restrict blood flow to allow the body to take action. In the long term, this response can damage the body as well as the mind, resulting in high blood pressure, stomach aches, depression, or anxiety.
Learning and practicing relaxation techniques has many benefits.
- Relieve anxiety
- Improve lung function
- Reduce fatigue
- Relieve headaches
- Reduce blood pressure
- Reduce risk of recurrent heart attack
- Relieve hot flashes from menopause
- Help chronic insomnia
- Increase blood flow to extremities
- Reduce muscle tension
- Improve concentration
- Reduce anger
Because the benefits of relaxation are so great, understanding different methods for relaxation to reduce and cope with stress is important. Try the following relaxation tips to ease your heart and mind.
- Self-massage: A good massage doesn't always mean shelling out the bucks for a masseuse. Using warmed massage oil, apply light pressure to the abdomen and heart, and focus on areas of concentrated nerve endings like the soles of feet and hands. This can increase circulation and provide the feeling of relaxation.
- Aromatherapy: Scent is one of the strongest senses, and various smells can bring the feeling of relaxation. Different essential oils are believed to stimulate a variety of brain functions. Scents like vanilla or lavender which can be found in our spa baskets are often soothing, so keep a sachet or bottle of essential oil of these scents in a convenient spot in order to relax.
- Visualization: Use your imagination to take yourself to a calm, peaceful place in your mind. Actively thinking about relaxing environments or feelings can have the physical effect of slower heart rate and breathing.
- Deep Breathing: Taking full, cleansing breaths can also slow breathing, improve oxygen intake, and help you relax. Breathe in through your nose, allowing your stomach to rise, and exhale through your mouth. Counting to ten during each inhale and each exhale can help guide you.
Since every person's experiences are different, trying a variety of relaxation tips will take some time. When you find the right method for you, practicing the right techniques will provide you the benefits of relaxation.