Relaxation Techniques and Exercise for Stress Management!

In line with the increasing demands of life, your risk of having stress increases and this is normal psychological reaction. The major issue is how to manage and control your stress?! There are a lot of ways to choose from when it comes to stress management. The common ones are sticking with regular exercise or (if necessary) relaxation techniques.

How does exercise help?

It’s clear that exercise can help promote good health, but sometime we don’t have adequate time to do it. If you seriously concern to your health, no matter how busy you are, you should provide a regular schedule to move your body and get plenty of physical activity.

How does exercise prevent and reduce stress

We know well that stress is a kind of psychological phenomenon – but why there is a link between this psychological reaction and exercise (physical activity)?

In general, our body is born and designed to get plenty of physical activity a day – not just sitting on the chair. This is the core of the reason for why exercise is one of the most essential parts to keep your body functioning properly and healthfully. Overall, there are a lot of health benefits by keeping active. The following are some major advantages from exercise:

1. Exercise is a basic thing for your stress management, because it can stimulate more endorphins (often considered as happy hormones). If you have plenty of hormone endorphins, you are more likely to keep far away from sadness or stress feeling. This also can help stimulate an increased level of immune response which then can promote well-being and you are less likely to fall sick.
2. You are more likely to have a better mood throughout your day. Sticking with a regular exercise can significantly help improve your mood and increase your confidence. This eventually will help lower your risk of developing anxiety and depression.
3. It helps improve the quality of your sleep. If you have both good stress management and regular workout, this can help eliminate problems that affect the quality of your sleep.
4. Exercise is a meditation of motion for your stress. After swimming, playing football, playing tennis – you are more likely to forget your day’s irritation and you tend to concentrate on your body’s movements.  This is a nice stress relief!

What a kind of exercise you can do?

In general, any form of exercise can be your stress relief. If you are physically inactive, don’t worry – a little physical movement that you do is good for your stress management. Increase the intensity of your workout gradually until your body gets used with the change.

Tips to love your regular exercise much more than you expect!

It’s not always easy to stick with regular exercises. If you are one of them, the following are some helpful tips:

1. Again, if you are inactive individual, increase your fitness level gradually! For most healthy adults, they need to have about at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week (such as walking or swimming) and 75 minutes a week of vigorous exercise (like running or weight lifting).
2. Choose the type of exercise that you can do with fun! While your exercise can increase your fitness level, the most important thing is how to do it regularly so thus it will help manage your stress continuously. Therefore, do what you love!
3. Schedule it so you can make it as a part of your daily routine throughout the week.
4. Find someone else to keep you motivated! For instance, do exercise with  a friend  so thus you can enjoy it and do it with fun.

Relaxation techniques – do they really work?

Yes, they do – even they are also another essential part for stress control, particularly if you are an individual of overachiever. They also can help restore the toll that stress takes on your body & mind.

There are some types to choose from. Yoga, meditation, tai-chi, massage, hypnosis, and mindfulness are some popular choices. Even you can start from a simple thing to help relax your mind such as by following in a sporting sports activity or just walking outdoors.

You can choose one that meets to your expectation and again make sure you can enjoy it (the most important thing you need to always remember). Because when you can enjoy it, you are more likely to practice it regularly and then eventually you can practice the relaxation therapy regularly and continuously.

Here are some major categories of relaxation techniques:

1. Visualization technique. As the name implies, it explores your visualization with some helpful images to help you reach a peaceful feeling. Sometime this technique may be combined with other different senses such as touch, smell, and sound.
2. Progressive muscle therapy. In this method, the relaxation is more focused on how to make you focus on gradually & slowly tensing and then loosening each muscle group. One of the major goals is to help you in recognizing the differences of your muscle relaxation and muscle tension – this can help you to become more aware of any physical sensation and eventually will also be helpful for your stress control.
3. Autogenic relaxation! In essence, it explores something that comes from your own body for stress relief.

Relaxation techniques may also help:

1. Increase your confident to handle a problem.
2. Improve your concentration.
3. Promote better blood flow in the body, which is so vital to maintain your heart health.
4. Maintain your normal breathing rate.
5. Improve chronic pain.
6. Relieve muscle pain.
7. Decrease your risk of mood disorders such as depression, irritability, and anxiety.

To achieve the benefits most, include other helpful lifestyle measures such as a well-balanced diet and sleep well everyday. Also, build a good relationship with others.