Relaxing means to calm the mind and body. It’s a time when you are less tense or anxious about the ongoings around you. When you relax, your mind is relaxed meaning you feel calm and at peace.
A research conducted by Harvard-affiliated showed that relaxation-response techniques, such as meditation, yoga, and prayer, could reduce the need for health care services by 43%.
RELAXATION AND HEALTH.
Relaxation reduces certain mental health risks such as:
Stress
- Depression
- Anxiety and
- Schizophrenia.
Relaxation also has some other related health benefits, which are:
- Decreases blood pressure
- Prevents heart disease, stroke as well as other chronic diseases
- Lowers your breathing rate
- Decreases muscle pain and tension
- Lowers your heart rate
- Helps your concentration
- Decreases fatigue
- Improves your mood
- Helps with anger management.
- Boosts self confidence
SOME WAYS TO RELAX
1. Always Schedule rest time and try to be intentional about it.
2. Connect to nature: When you’re feeling stressed, take a step outside and go for a short walk, or simply sit in nature. Lots of laboratory and field studies have shown that contact with real or simulated green settings as opposed to built settings have positive effects on mood, self-esteem and self-reported feelings of stress and depression, and can help to recover from stress and attention fatigue
3. Soak in a warm bath
4. Listen to soothing music: While fast music can increase your alertness, slow music helps you feel relaxed and calm. It also relaxes your muscles while relieving stress. Rhythmic music may change brain function. Research done at Stanford university has shown that slow beats encourage the slow brainwaves that are associated with hypnotic or meditative states.
5. Breathing exercises: This is one of the simplest, proven and most effective methods of relieving stress and relaxing. Find out more.
6. Create a gratitude journal: Most times it helps to write down things you are grateful for. This helps you count your blessings and know how far you have come. Also, writing down your feelings can help you manage them.
“There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.” –Ralph Blum
7. Listen to your favorite podcast.
8. Get a massage: Massages help reduce muscle tension, improves circulation, reduces the secretion of stress hormones thereby, allowing you to relax.
9. Drink a warm milk
10. Prayer and Meditation
11. Try to stretch
12. Make some crafts, arts, designs, painting, drawing, or play a musical instrument
13. Try yoga: Research has shown that yoga encourages relaxation, slows breathing and allows you to focus on the present. It also decreases heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels (that is stress hormone). One major purpose of yoga is to achieve inner peace, tranquility of the mind, create a sense of well-being, feel relaxed, improve self-confidence, and get an optimistic view about life.
14. Try to do some workout or exercises
15. Take a walk: Spend some time in nature, walk in a local park, visit places with beautiful trees, flowers, plants and even animals.
16. Read a book
17. Try to clean and organize your surroundings.
18. Bake: For some people like myself, baking or cooking is a very good way to relieve stress and relax my mind.
19. Watch your favorite movie or TV show
20. Organize and Clean up your environment
21. Take a nap.
22. Dance to some cool music.
23. Close your eyes and imagine being somewhere relaxing and very peaceful.
24. Squeeze a Stress Ball: Squeezing a stress ball is not a long term solution for stress. It can help your body to release tension momentarily. This acts as a reminder to relax your muscles that are clenched when you’re anxious. The effect of squeezing is that it releases some energy which helps you to relax. Just know that when you are severely stressed out, no amount of foam balls or teddy bears will help you; you definitely need some rest.
25. Spend some time alone: Spending time alone enables you to think about your life. You think about where you are and where you want to be. Self-reflection is important for human development, accessing progress, and learning.
26. Talk to a Friend: When you feel stressed about something or you are getting a lot of pressure from work or other activities, talking to a friend can really help ease some of the pressure. A friend is always there to listen without judging as well as support you. They give you advice and see to it that you are on the right path.
27. Hang out with friends
28. Laugh and watch something funny.
29. Drink Some Water
30. Go on a Vacation
31. Enjoy yourself: Try doing something you love. It could be going to the movies, hanging out with friends, going on a field trip, etc.
Do not be too serious with life make out time for the fun stuffs too!!!
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“Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges. So relax.” –Bryant McGill
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