Tag Archives: Stress Factors

Yoga Techniques for Taking the Stress Out of Vacations

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Taking the Stress Out of Vacations

Yoga techniques act as a stress reliever. Yoga techniques help to reduce the stress that rises from our daily activities. Even during vacations people are getting attacked with the outside stressful factors, which can damage a very good vacation period.

Vacation stress is somewhat an aggressive expression but it is real and it can cause serious disturbances and damages. The reasons for getting stress and angry during your vacation are numerous. The reasons could be poor services, awful weather, high charges, crowd, noisy tourists, irritating insects and many more.

In order to avoid the vacation stress, it is better to follow yoga techniques for stress management. Yoga techniques for stress management provides relief by making the body relaxed for the maximum flow of energy through yoga poses, breathing exercises that give energy by pranayama and peacefulness to the mind by meditation.

Yoga techniques provide numerous ways of reducing the effects of these negative elements in the form of meditation, sakshin, pratyahara and pranayama.

Meditation is a suggested practice when vacation stress factors become active and it helps to avoid these vacation stress factors. Meditation is one of the five principles of yoga. It is one of the important yoga techniques to achieve mental stability and health.

There are some simple techniques of meditation that can be used by people to combat vacation stress problems. To have progress in meditation it is more important to meditate at least once a day.

• Meditation helps you get ready for any possible stressful conditions. It also helps during and after combating these obstacles.

• Sakshin is a separate state of consciousness that provides you a way of getting a better understanding of the realities around you.

• Pratyahara is a state of peace that is achieved by reducing all outside interferences to an optimum level. By using pratyahara, the mind gets tranquil and relaxed, focusing towards the inside of your own body.

• Pranayama helps in increasing the ability to calm yourself nearly in any difficult conditions by regulating your breathing and hence balancing the energies in your body.

It is more important to get prepared for any type of stress factors that arises in a vacation period. Expecting the probability of getting a problem doesn’t imply worrying about it before it arises. It only means that you need to have a good understanding over the situation and the problem that arises.

Always, you will achieve much better consequences by dealing an issue with a peaceful and clear mind, rather than acting on an inclination.

It is better to “step out” of your body and see yourself in that particular situation, when a problem occurs. Impartiality is hard to attain, particularly when it comes to your own self, nevertheless it helps to get a balanced point of view on situations or things.

Stimulating an action by the strategy of an objective mind will illustrate more successful than jumping in head initially into a situation. There are some thoughts such as, it will be hard to help myself from these situations, need to eliminate completely from your own thoughts and dictionary.

It will be great if you take control of your inner self because it helps you to have control over the outside things of your body in the surrounding world. You must primarily feel the body’s reaction to an outside element and react only after getting a clear judgment of the things to do.

Breathing exercises provides a great help in relaxing an impulsive spirit and getting peacefulness to your mind in a particular event or situation. It is necessary for you to interrupt the events of your subconscious mind before you take control of a situation.

Early responses are speedy and often very hard to evade, however it is necessary that, with a regular practice of yoga techniques, you find a constant feeling of control over your reactions.

The first reaction to a negative element of vacation stress can be either combating back or escaping. In any of these cases, there will be a significant amount of tensions that fills your body, and it could stay for days or weeks until you manage to get over these unfortunate events.

A peaceful and balanced response will have more chances of removing any kind of tension before it even gets an opportunity to start rising. Consider that the most vacations are short and do not afford to waste half of your vacation period in a negative mood. So, yoga techniques and meditation are there to recharge your body energy, and do not try to waste your vacations on worthless stress and tensions.

Nishanth Reddy is an author and publisher of many health related websites. For more information on yoga, benefits of yoga, yoga exercises, yoga techniques and yoga postures, visit his website:
Online Yoga Guide

Simple Stress Reduction Techniques

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Deadlines to meet, appointments to keep, relationship problems, financial worries, the list of stress factors goes on and on. We live in a world of stress and are constantly bombarded with stimulus that creates tension in our bodies and minds.

Most people are aware of their stress, but many don’t know how to release it in a healthy way. Very few people have the luxury of taking a long, unplanned vacation and going to a mountaintop to meditate until their stress goes away. Even if we could do this, when we returned to our daily lives, the stress would be right there waiting there for us.

Stress is part of human existence. It served a purpose in the days when our ancestors lived in caves. Without stress, we wouldn’t have survived. Stress reactions in our bodies and minds come from the fight or flight response.

Long ago, when possible danger lurked in our daily environment, the fight or flight response served us well, and it still does in dangerous situations. The problem is, most of us are not facing the possibility of a hungry animal lurching out from behind a tree and attacking us. Our bodies don’t distinguish between real and perceived danger. Any stimulus that induces fear brings forth the fight or flight response.

Fear comes in many forms, including worry. When a person worries, he or she fears some future action or consequence. The body and mind respond as if the perceived threat is real. Heart rate goes up. Blood pressure increases.  Muscles tense. Brain wave patterns alter as if personal survival were at stake. In today’s world we respond to a boss’s tirade or dental work, the way our cave dwelling ancestors reacted to a bear on the rampage. The next time you feel stressed, take a deep breath and ask where the bear is.

One law of science states that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This holds true in human biology. The opposite of the fight or flight reaction is a “relaxation response.” Herbert Benson, a doctor who studied the body’s physiological changes during relaxation, identified the “relaxation response.”  We can intentionally bring about the relaxation response to counter the effects of stress.

Dr. Benson studied transcendental meditation as a method of inducing the “relaxation response.” Not all of us have the time or inclination to study meditation, but there are other ways we can calm ourselves and counter stress. Reducing your stress involves learning to relax amid the hustle and bustle of daily life. Quiet your mind. Create peace for yourself. You can relax.

Simple Stress Reduction Techniques You Can Do in Five Minutes or Less

All it takes to reduce stress is breathing, relaxing, and visualizing.

Focus On Your Breathing

During times of high stress or anxiety, our natural tendency is to hold our breath. With chronic tension, we become shallow breathers. We need to allow oxygen to fill our lungs. Otherwise, we are robbing our bodies of optimal oxygen. Deep breathing breaks the cycle of tension.

Take a deep breath through your nose. Feel your lungs filling with air and your chest expanding from your diaphragm upwards. As you inhale tell yourself, “I am Love.” Exhale through your mouth. As you exhale, tell yourself, “I am Loved.” Repeat until you have established a slow, steady rhythm to your breathing.

Relax Your Muscles

We all carry tension in different parts of our bodies. To release this tension, start with deep breathing. Next, tense the muscles of your forehead and hold that tension for five seconds. Tense the muscles in your neck for five seconds, and let go. Tense the muscles in your shoulders for five seconds, and let go. Move downwards through your body, tensing muscles and letting go, until you reach your toes.
Once you finish tensing and relaxing all the muscle groups, do a mental check on your entire body. If you notice any areas of stress, tense those muscles for five seconds then let go. Take a slow, deep breath.

Visualize

Certain types of visual imagery can elicit the “relaxation response.” Mentally see yourself in a peaceful place, sitting on a deserted beach or taking a luxurious hot bath, or sitting by a mountain stream. Focus on the sounds, sights and smells of this peaceful place. If your sense of peace is interrupted by anxious thoughts, observe them. Then gently return to the sights, smells, and sensations that surround you in your peaceful place.

Using these simple techniques can help you release your stress and feel more relaxed.

Cynthia Tierra – Holistic Health Practitioner/Reiki Master Teacher is the founder and proprietor of Healing From The Heart in Sedona, Arizona. She assists people on their journeys towards healing and self realization. Cynthia created a personal treatment style catering to individual client’s needs that works with the mind, body and spirit. A stress reduction specialist, professional healer and Universal Shaman, she facilitates personal healing retreats in Sedona and also does distance healing by phone. Visit her web site http://www.HealingOne.net