7 Natural Tips for Stress and Anxiety Relief

The game of life is rarely played on a level playing field.  Life is faster, busier, more challenging than ever before and stress and anxiety go hand in hand with trying to keep pace with it, cope with the pressures of today’s workplace and the inevitable ups and downs that life brings.

If we imagine ourselves to be that playing field, we see how we and our equilibrium can be affected by both the environments and the ‘weather’ we find ourselves in.

• Heavy rain can turn our playing field into a quagmire, making it hard to keep your footing and we can ‘sink’, over prolonged period, of consistent adverse conditions, it could mean we get emotionally ‘stuck’ in a situation and find it difficult to get out.
• Freezing conditions can make the ground very hard and only the hardiest of us can thrive and grow. These could be situations in life where you’re experiencing being held back or stopped from moving forward for some reason, or it could be something you feel you need to endure perhaps.
• Equally, too much heat can bake the ground and burn off all the growth you’ve made, again making it difficult underfoot and not so easy to make forward progress, personal growth is stunted. In a work place situation, you could liken this to burn out, too many demands made of you or the A type personality pushing themselves too much!   
• Strong winds blowing across the field can make it difficult to walk forward too, and anything trying to grow there can wither and die, unless they’re a good fit for the situation. Certainly, if we stay in negative situations too long, they can leave us pretty bent out of shape!  These too can be the winds of change; they are blowing strongly around the world right now, leaving a lot of uncertainty in their wake.

So we can see there are many factors that can affect our balance and our ability to move through life.  What we need is a good balance of all types of ‘weather’ not too much and not too little, to enable us to grow and  move forward in life in a strong, balanced and empowered way.

The secret to the relief of anxiety and stress can be different things for different people, but a key factor is to recognise that you are stressed before it gets out of hand and you suffer burnout.  What is causing you to feel out of balance?  What can you change?

 

A word about using TV for stress and anxiety relief

Anxiety and stress relief for many people, is often a quick fix sedative in the forms of alcohol and TV.  The first, while initially relaxing, can become addictive and damaging, the second depends very much on the programming you watch and the little understood fact that your emotions are linked to whatever you are watching and that this too can raise your anxiety or stress level.  It is true that the TV flicker rate on the screen puts you into the alpha brainwave state, a relaxed state, which is why we often flick the TV on to chill out!  However, if your choice of program is violent, stressful or brings up emotions, it will make a difference to how you feel.

In my experience, the best way to bring about change and relieve stress and anxiety is to make several small but significant changes that will help bring you and your life into balance again.  Sometimes we need to make big life changes, like a new job or letting go of a relationship, but often, once you’re back in control and calmer, things don’t seem so bad. Once you begin to invest in you, and take control of your own experience, you will feel better!

Tips 

• Relaxation Essential Oils

• Invest in some natural, pure essential oils to relax and a small vaporiser to release them into the air. Your body ‘ingests’ the oils through your breath and they enter the bloodstream.  Check online for pure essential oils that have relaxing properties. (Don’t be tempted to use cheap synthetic ‘air freshening oils’ as these have no healing properties and you can actually be breathing in chemicals instead!)

 

• Healing & Energy Balancing

• Invest in regular chakra balancing sessions or deeper healing sessions with a fully trained healer, to bring your system into balance, release stress and anxiety. This works by cleansing the energy system and physical body of lower vibration energies, and replacing them with high vibration energies, leaving you feeling calm, relaxed, lighter and brighter.  The chakras govern the main organs of the physical body as well as influencing how you feel emotionally and mentally.  The cells of our body are made up of atoms, we are all energetic beings, most people just don’t acknowledge that.

This is a colour healing, chakra balancing video I made a couple of years ago .. all you need to do is watch to allow yourself to relax and become more balanced energetically.

 

• Nature TV & Comedy

• If you enjoy TV, try watching some gentle nature programs to de-stress you, not the predator, hunting variety but something a little more peaceful! Watching comedy that makes you laugh also releases endorphins, the brain’s feel good chemicals and makes you feel better.

 

• Music

• Listen to your favourite music if it is soothing or makes you feel good. Bear in mind that when choosing music to relax, it should have a rhythm that is slower that your heartbeat.  Your body will respond accordingly.

 

• Meditate

•  Just 5 – 10 minutes of meditation a day can make a difference. The regularity of a daily routine not only helps you to become more balanced, it helps you to keep that balance in challenging situations. Look for simple breath meditations online, or focus your attention on a flower and its beauty, watch a candle flame flicker, or just take some nice long deep breaths on and off throughout the day, breathing in peace and breathing out stress.  This floods your body with oxygen which helps when your system is under stress.

 

• New Activity

• Find a new hobby that takes your mind to a different place, any form of activity that requires your full attention. Good examples that can reduce anxiety and stress are gardening, mindful walking, painting or drawing, craft work, photography or playing a musical instrument.  All of these activities can be classed as a meditation if your mind becomes totally focused upon it and you become calm.

• Exercise

• Gentle forms of Tai Chi, Chi Kung, or Yoga are also great ways to de stress your body and your mind. Find a local class or group or buy a teaching dvd and learn from that.

 

Hopefully there are a few things there that you can try out.  If you try them and they help, it’d be great to hear from you in the comments below.

Should you like to try some energy work to release and balance your system up, or just get some support with your situation, I’m here to help in Ashton in Makerfield and also work via Skype and phone.

 

Blessings,

Kam