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How to Reduce Stress Part 3: Learning to Relax

I have a t-shirt that I bought in one of the islands in the Caribbean that says, “It is good to do nothing and then to rest”.  Just as it is important for us to have good time management skills and to work hard, it is also just as necessary to practice calming our mind and being still.  For many it is very hard just to be still, to not be doing anything, to just relax.  Relaxation is about being still physically while being alert mentally.  Knowing how to ‘relax’ is one way of allowing your body and mind to rest, a very deep rest, which in turn allows you to build the energy you need for the rest of your activities.

Imagine I ask you to hold yourself up on a chin up bar and hold it as tight and long as you possibly can.  In a very short period of time you start to get tired and it becomes more difficult.  Soon your muscles are aching and there seems to be no power in your hands or arm to continue to hold.  Finally it becomes impossible – you let go and you feel great relief.  If we did the same experiment and I asked you to hold yourself up on a chin up bar for 10 seconds and then you got a short break and then held yourself  for 10 seconds with a break – you would be able to continue that routine for a much longer time, and the reason is you allowed yourself to relax your muscles.

If we never take the time to calm our mind and body, fatigue can set in quickly and everyday activities will seem harder for us and soon we simply do not have the energy to do even the simple things.  This kind of relaxing is not the same as watching TV, napping, chatting online or even taking a walk.  It can be accomplished in these ways though. Continue reading “How to Reduce Stress Part 3: Learning to Relax”

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How to Reduce Stress Part 2: The Effect of Food on Stress

We have all heard that ‘you are what you eat’.  While we don’t eat stress, what we do eat can stress the cells in our body and brain, and they do know the difference between what is good for them and what is really just filler material – that most of the time is easier to get and can taste good.  If we do not give our bodies what it needs you cannot be at your best, physically or mentally.

First lets talk about healthy food that reduces stress.  Our bodies are made up of 70% water yet most people only eat between 5 and 15 percent of water based foods in their diet.  Immediately that causes a deficit of the most valuable part of the makeup of your diet.  The water you get from drinking water and in fruits and vegetables actually allows you to think better, as the cell connections in your brain are aided by water.  Eating foods that are water based, fruits and vegetables as the majority of your diet is the best.

However putting good food in is only one part of the system.  Reducing or eliminating the bad things we put in our bodies is also an important step.  Here are two of the biggest culprits in our diet  that are not healthy choices and will increase the affects of our stress.

Caffeine: hidden in more foods than you can imagine, can make you feel good short term, but can also increase sleeplessness and panic attacks.

Sugar: Looks good, tastes great and is added to more prepared foods than you can imagine, will give you a quick high and then a big let down.  The up and down effect can leave you wiped out.

In our busy lives though, eating correctly is one of the toughest choices we have to make.  Doing so though will make us feel better physically, mentally and just as important, we will know that we are doing the right thing!

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How To Reduce Stress: A 10 Part series on reducing stress – Part 1 Do Something Physical

Without getting all scientific on you, there are many reasons that physical activity is great when you are feeling stressed.  First when you are stressed out your body produces cortisol and that can make you feel even more nervous and anxious, even to the point of feeling sick.  Getting active will use up some of that cortisol and that will help to reduce the nervous feelings.

Just as important the physical activity also produces a chemical – endorphins – that help you feel good!  They improve your mood and help you slow down, as well as when you are tired you can sleep better.  All of us know of the physical health benefits of exercise, but the mental health benefits are great too.

What is your favorite thing to do?  Is it walking, dancing, martial arts, skateboarding, basketball, frisbee???  Any activity can be good and if you make it a habit to get some activity that you enjoy in everyday you will find your stress levels being reduced.  But when we sit around or are dormant, or only worry about what we ‘have to do’, then our stress levels will go up.

One warning;  Do not let physical activity become a distraction to the point of being an escapism method.  Physical activity and especially sports and teams can become overwhelming if we are over achievers and only add more stress to our lives, if we are trying to fit too much in to our schedules.  Finding the balance of some physical activity everyday while continuing to work on the root causes of our stress is the best.

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Pain and Injury as Part of Training Life

It has been my observation that the practice of martial arts revolves around the question of balancing training with injury. For the most practical, combative training, one probably wants to spar a lot. One adds rules to the sparring, because otherwise people get badly hurt. Even with rules, people get hurt sooner or later, so instead of hitting one another, martial artists often hit targets. This is important because one can not progress if one’s training is constantly interrupted recovering from injury. Safer still would be hitting only air, but I can tell you even Taiji can hurt your joints pretty badly while you are learning to coordinate your movements. So it seems to me that every martial artist confronts this question every time they approach training: How am I going to do this today and still be able to do it tomorrow?

Class two students practicing body hardening

This is on my mind these days, because we have been training pretty hard and I am consequently in a bit of pain. We are expected to train if we are able, and none of my injuries are serious enough to demand that I miss training, but they are all painful and they create mental stress. This in itself is a form of training, of course; maintaining emotional calm when every movement hurts.

The conclusion people come to, I think, is that there are two kinds of pain, good pain and bad pain, and both are valuable sources of information about what is going on in your body.  Specific pains can be a wealth of information about the balance of strength in different tendons and muscles. Good pain tells you that you are going beyond your current limits and improving. Bad pain tells you that if you keep going, you will do such damage that your training will have to be interrupted by recovery. One wants to push the line that divides the two as far as one can, so that though training is difficult, it can remain continuous.

As for the injuries that do inevitably occur when training hard, I am not a doctor but my experience has shown me that rest is not the best cure. Rest is necessary, but attentive light exercise will stimulate circulation, help the metabolism deliver energy and nutrients to the damaged area, and reduce recovery time. At least that is what I hope will happen, because my ribs are really sore…:-)

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What Parents Can Do to Help Stop Bullying

Does saying “Just ignore it.”  help a child when they are being bullied?  While this is advice that has been given for years, the fact is that it does not solve the problem for the target of the bully.

In fact as the child tries to ignore the bully, the damage that is done deep on the inside of the victim may be hidden away, but is really eating away at them, as they develop self doubt, and less and less confidence.    So what can we do?

Recently the article, How to Build Confidence in Children & Stop Bullying, explored this subject.  After reading this you may want to pass this on to your friends and neighbors, as bullying is a community issue that will only be solved as we work together to improve our society.

Here is a link to the article:  http://bit.ly/lyEjML

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Stress: Using Avoidance to Cope

One level higher than distraction for coping with stress is AVOIDANCE.   As one 14 year old said, “when I don’t want to do something, I go online.”  That is probably true for a number of adults too.  We can get lost in the online world and even have an excuse saying we are doing research or something else.

When it comes to the higher level of avoidance, procrastination is very high on the list of common ways of putting off something that we do not want to face.  Using procrastination on projects, studying or deadlines may be a sign of not wanting to deal with real problems or emotions, and we may find ourselves living with high levels of high anxiety.

Some use sickness as an avoidance strategy.  In the USA over 160,000 students miss school, many times using sickness as the excuse to avoid bullies at school.  It is not that the illness, stomachache, headache, muscle pain or a whole slew of sympton’s are not real – but the root cause may be stress about something deeper that needs to be dealt with that we are avoiding.

Others use sleep as a way of avoiding stressful situations and challenges.  There is no doubt that when we are rested we can do a better job of facing our work, but if we are spending over 12 hours in bed or not leaving our bed on the weekend, it could be a sign of avoiding something.  One thing for sure is that sleep will not solve deeper challenges.

But here is the surprise avoidance tactic of all, being super involved and overachieving to overcome negative feelings.  Staying busy with many clubs, sporting activities and high end class course work may be a sign of trying to prove to yourself and others that you are good enough.  Trying to keep it all together to prove to our else and others that everything is good, can be so difficult and stressful on us that without even noticing things continue to get worse for us.

Avoidance many times leads to seclusion, with your own negative thoughts, that can lead to feeling hopeless and depressed.  Feelings like this may lead to the highest level of non-coping, escape.  We will talk about the dangers of that in our next article.

1. Using distraction as a way to avoid stress