Stress Management Relaxation Techniques Are Easy To Do

Why use stress management relaxation techniques? Everyone craves stress relief these days. With full time workloads and overtime schedules to get through at home with the family, most people are suffering from a chronic lack of relaxation.

If you are feeling more overwhelmed than peaceful these days, it may be time to pack your toolbox full of stress management relaxation techniques.

If you load the toolbox with short and long term stress relieving strategies, you will find yourself feeling relaxed more than overwhelmed.

Short Term Stress Relief Strategies

When you are at work, the grocery store, or stuck in traffic, there are some things you can do to bring fast relief of stress and tension. Here are some of the most effective techniques to add to your toolbox:

• Go out for a slow walk. Do not walk fast as if for fitness. Go slow and pay attention to your surroundings. Identify the smell of the air. Look at the trees, the grass, the benches and everything you pass. Forget about yesterday and tomorrow. Simply be in the moment.


• Position yourself in front of a window and practice being in the moment, just as you did in the last technique. This is a variation to use when you cannot get out of the office or house.


• Take long, deep breaths, preferably with your eyes closed. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Feel your stomach expand open as you breathe in.


• Stand up and stretch your arms far over your head, feeling your rib cage stretch. Then bend over and reach your arms as far back between your legs as possible. This can be done sitting down if standing is not convenient.


• Take time to write about your emotions in a journal. This can be something online or a small notebook that you carry with you at all times. Writing is miraculous when it comes to thinking through problems and realizing what is worth stressing over, and what is not worth stressing over.

Long Term Stress Relief Strategies

There are also some stress management relaxation techniques you can add into your lifestyle for long term reduction of stress. Pick things that you can naturally blend into your lifestyle and stick with them:

• Delve into the art of meditation. You will draw many new short term techniques for the toolbox as you learn more about meditation. Start with the basic strategies of deep breathing and then learn deeper strategies for controlling your response to stress.


• Add yoga to the weekly schedule. Even if you just do a short yoga pose that you teach yourself at home, it will go a long way to controlling stress. Pay attention to your breathing as that is the most important element for stress relief.


• Maintain a healthy weight. Exercise and eat a healthy diet. Make sure to stay hydrated with plenty of water. The healthier your body is, the better you will cope with stress.


• Perfect your communication skills. A lot of stress comes from the lack of communication or the inability to effectively communicate with others in potentially tense situations. If you know how to speak to others in a calming manner and maintain a level of respect no matter what, you will have a lot less stress of the personal nature in your life.


• Stop tackling large goals. Break everything down into manageable sub-goals and focus on one small piece of the larger goal at a time. This is much less overwhelming and will force you to fully plan out the goal before taking it on.

Putting It All Together

Now that you have your toolbox packed full of stress management relaxation techniques for short and long term stress relief, start thinking about how you can put them to use in your daily life.

Start by practicing all of the techniques that you feel may be helpful to you. Take time to do them a few times so you feel more comfortable practicing them. Then list them out by title on an index card and keep that with you at all times.

When you have a stress attack and start to feel overwhelmed, you can pull out the card and start using your tools.

Eventually, you won't need the list of tools. Your toolbox will be in your brain and your use of the tools will be automatic upon the first sensations of overwhelming stress.

This is when you will start using your stress management relaxation techniques as if they were a natural part of your brain. You will feel a lot more relaxed at all times at that point. 

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