Learning To De-Stress Stress

Learning To De-Stress Stress

Stress is an everyday part of life. Everyone experiences it so it’s perfectly normal to be stressed out. But taking into consideration, normal doesn’t necessarily mean healthy for the body. Stress may bring about physical changes to one’s stature and upbringing and may even lead to some illnesses, such as ulcers, high blood pressure, tension, burn out and so on.

According to psychologist Robert Sarmiento, Ph.D., “The way I think of it, stress is a "false alarm". What I mean is that it is the erroneous activation of the "danger alarm" system of the brain. I visualize it as a big red fire alarm inside the head. When the danger alarm is turned on, it produces a physiological response called the "fight or flight" reaction, which helps us to fight the danger or flee it.”

Fortunately, stress can be cured. You just need to control stress and don’t let stress control you.

So how do we manage stress? According to Dr. Sarmiento, there are two ways to manage stress.

With the basis of stress as being equated to an alarm system, he says that you need to control stress in two ways: 1. Learn how to turn off the alarm system through various relaxation methods. 2. Learn how to not turn it on inadvertently in the first place.

Learning to relax and try to take in one thing at a time makes you keep the pace at such a slow effort. By keeping the pace to a normal consistency in equilibrium, there is less chance of you being agitated and uptight.

Here are tips on how to take it one step at a time:

1) deep breathing – take several slow and deep breaths rather than a fast-paced shallow breaths

2) muscle relaxation – try to exercise muscles in your body that bring you to the most tension, especially the arms, neck, legs, and hands. Massage them if possible and relax them. You can also mix together deep breathing and this exercise so that it will less your heightened adrenalin

3) visualization – use your brain and mind power. Imagine a pristine and scene beaches with calm and clear water. What things can you see there? What colors are present? What can you hear and feel? Can you taste the fresh aroma of the sea?

Learning to de-stress stress is actually a manageable thing. All it takes are some time and some conscious effort to really get rid of the thing that bothers you most. Once done, challenges and problems in life will just be a breeze.