Stress Response

When we get stressed, we suffer a great deal of consequences that affect practically everything in our lives. Anxiety, depression, tiredness, nervousness, and exhaustion are just some of the stress ailments. Also, anyone can tell for sure, it’s better NOT to be stressed. Anyhow, most people are sort of used to it, some see their daily stress as necessary to drive them to do whatever needs to be done, and some are fed up with it. In any of these cases, it's caused by the stress response, which is also known as fight or flight instinct. We evolved with it for safety of our lives. The problem is, this response is meant for situations where our lives are in immediate physical danger, so our bodies literally prepare for either a fight or a quick run away from it. Unfortunately, we didn't much evolved to live a modern life, and matters which may be very important to our well-being, but not critical to our physical safety, trigger the response anyway. It's pretty much established nowadays that relaxed people are more productive, deal better with their problems, and are generally happier. It doesn't mean they have no problems. It means they respond to them in more appropriate and skilful way. From my own experience with people I know, there's a big deal of conviction that you need to be stressed or something bad will happen. It's a natural fear I'm not excluded from, and I think many people can notice and recognise it too. Personally, I think if something is worth doing, we can do it without letting our bodies react as we were in danger, which reduces quality and length of our lives. In this section I will lay out some useful information for those readers who are interested in relaxation alone, without getting too deep into meditation and mindfulness.

Relaxation Response

Whenever we stress or relax, our autonomic nervous system come into play. It regulates all kinds of our bodily functions and includes the following two: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. The latter is our object of interest here as relaxation isn't just lack of stress, it is a physiological function of our bodies. Below are some examples of how they affect us.

Sympathetic Nervous System
Stress Response
Enlarged pupils
Dry mouth
Accelerated heartbeat
Dilated bronchi
Slow digestion
Release of sugar into blood
Inhibited bladder contraction

Parasympathetic Nervous System
Relaxation Response
Normal size pupils
Good flow of saliva
Slow heartbeat
Contracted bronchi
Fast digestion
Release of bile
Normal bladder function

As you can see these two systems have a quite an opposite effect on the body and our goal in this section is to restore a healthy balance between them. As we already established, relaxation is a body's function on its own, not just lack of stress, so the common sense would tell us, that we can elicit it without having to deal with external causes of the stress (at this time). It is very important to objectively identify stress sources in our lives, but relaxation isn't about them. It's about our reactions. Those reactions can be trained, as it is a skill, more than something you can do the first time and change how your entire being works. Further down this page, I will present few effective methods of stress relief, but it takes a little bit of everything I outline here for those methods to work, or it may take just one aspect of relaxation that a particular person is missing. The only way to see is to try it for a couple of weeks. Modern brain imaging techniques have revealed that triggering relaxation response daily, starts to change the brain two days to two weeks into practice. The health advantages of relaxation response trained on daily basis are truly impressive. It counteracts effects of stress related illnesses such as anxiety, mild to moderate depression, anger and hostility, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeats, pain, premenstrual syndrome, infertility, hot flashes associated with menopause, insomnia, and many others. Those benefits are confirmed by Harvard Medical School for people who spend at least 20 minutes a day on practising the relaxation response, so I'd say, it's not a myth or pseudo-science, as it was thought to be 50 years ago. But before moving on to the methods, I must mention the three dimensions of relaxation first, so we have something to work on.

Body Mind Spirit

Body, mind, and spirit are the three dimensions we need to consider when it comes to relaxation. They all depend on each other and a problem with just one of them can affect the others and cause us much suffering. The same goes for positive interventions. For example, relaxing muscles of the body helps with anxiety in the mind which in turn allows for better spirit. And by "spirit" I don't mean religion or faith in a higher power, but the way we relate to the world, our place and purpose in it. Spirituality is all about transcending the barrier that separates us from "the outside world", giving us a sense of belonging and wholesomeness. That alone can dramatically reduce stress for many people as it encourages compassion which kills off fear. Others may find addressing their stress on a psychological level to be the way, or just some massage may do the trick. It's up to you to find the right approach, keeping in mind that all three dimensions of relaxation need to be figured out, at least to the extent that allows identifying problems. Below are the three dimensions of relaxation in more detail.

Physical Relaxation (Body)
Physical dimension of relaxation is all about releasing any tensions we may have built up in our muscles. The inventor of the Progressive Relaxation technique, Edmund Jacobson, first discovered (in the 1920s), that everyday life's stress builds up in our bodies in a form of residual muscle tension and can be as well released by addressing those tensions, without having to investigate the cause of the stress. This principle stands for all kinds of relaxation methods that address the body. This may be very useful if you don't have any stressful events that stand out, but you're stressed out of the volume of everyday challenges and difficulties. In those cases, not identifying each of the little details that build up, works in your favour. However, in the long term, investigating them is strongly advised, as it may turn out there's one or a few psychological reasons why your life is stressful in general, and it may not be instantly evident. Some of the most known physical relaxation techniques are: Progressive Relaxation, breathing exercises, physical exercise, Yoga, Tai Chi, biofeedback, and massage.

Psychological Relaxation (Mind)
In mind dimension, we reduce anxiety and suffering in general by calming our minds. It's worth to mention, all our suffering, stress and discomforts are in the mind. For example, physical pain is not a problem when your mind doesn't desperately want it to go away. By practising mind relaxation techniques like meditation, guided imagery, self-hypnosis, cognitive behavioural techniques, problem solving or humour, we gain skills that allow us to react in better way to things we probably can't change. Those things are the most annoying, but the answer is in the mind, not fixing the world to our own comfort.

Holistic Relaxation (Spirit)
Spiritual dimension is a little different. As I mentioned before, spirituality is all about how we relate to the world and what's our place in it. There aren't really techniques for boosting your spirit other than interacting with the world in a good way. It may be an occasional shift in charity organization or involvement in “spiritual” community. Whatever gives you a purpose other than yourself will do. It wouldn’t harm to contemplate your relationship with God or the Universe, or any higher power. Thinking about your place in this world while being forgiving and kind to yourself, can help a lot. Meditation, prayer, religious ceremonies, or chanting is helpful too.

I understand that some people just don’t get it and I wouldn’t dare to judge them. Sometimes doing little things right in your own context makes a whole lot of a difference. Personally, I'm not too enthusiastic about discussing those matters myself, as I believe there shouldn't be any standards that you can compare to a person and say, "He/She is spiritual". It’s a very individual matter, often popularised on the Internet and in other media.

Summing up, you can start with any of those approaches and experiment with them however you like, finding what works for you, but be sure to consider and research them all some more. Sometimes we're blind to the obvious and the only way to know for sure is to try it.

Relaxation Techniques

In following chapters, you’ll find some effective and popular relaxation methods meant for relaxation of the body, the mind, and the spirit. Please keep in mind, it takes practice to gain skills in any of them and the benefits might not be apparent right away. As I mentioned before, relaxation is more about the skill than it is about any technique. These techniques, however, are good tools you can use skilfully and gain the skill using them.

First on the list is relaxing with use of your own breath. It’s a time-tested method which is available to us at any time, in any place, and we always carry everything we need for it with us. Next, I will present a technique of Progressive Relaxation. A muscle relaxation method using the ever-present relationship between stress and muscle tension. After this we will explore Autogenics, which is basically mindfulness of the body achieved with a simple and specific method with clear instructions. Guided imagery also known as guided meditation will follow, leaving meditation and prayer for the end.

Breathing

Breathing can be a powerful tool to trigger relaxation response. Unlike other relaxation techniques like progressive relaxation or guided imagery, breathing techniques can directly trigger the response. I’m sure, and I think that many people would agree, that breathing is just great. We do it all the time, it’s always with us, it happens here and now in the present moment, and can be a perfect object of meditation. In fact, the original breathing meditation that the Buddha had prescribed is meant for anyone from the beginners to those close to realization. However, we’ll take more simple and easy approach in this section.

I recognise that we can use breathing to relax in two main ways. One way is as a formal technique we exercise and train ourselves with in predetermined time and place. Doing it daily is well proven to have both immediate effects and long-term benefits. The other way would depend more on your skill than discipline. It’s the little interventions like taking a few deep breaths, doing a short breathing exercise that can be done anywhere or simply bringing back your awareness to the breathing. Diligent daily practice will make those little interventions work their magic.

There’s no golden technique that would suit everyone and you will have to come up with your own, based on your research and self-investigative practice, to make it suitable for your own needs. After all it’s very easy once you get few basic principles. Let’s start with a few simple breathing exercises you can adjust, combine, and adapt to your own daily practice.

Letting yourself to breath
1. Lie down on your back, preferably on hard surface like floor.
2. Place one hand on your stomach and the other one on your chest.
3. Take few deeper breaths in a way you can feel your hands moving. Are you breathing with your chest or with your belly?
4. Try to breath with your diaphragm (belly breathing) for a longer while.
5. Let go of any control and just feel how you breath naturally for couple of minutes.

If you find it difficult to feel your own breath and not to control it, you need some practice in this area. It is the most crucial to be able to let go of control while fully feeling your breath. Later, if you practice, you’ll be able to lead your breathing whenever you need to without directly controlling it.

Taking it deeper
1. Get into a comfortable sitting position with your back straight.
2. Let yourself breath naturally, just observing the motions for a while.
3. When your breath becomes settled, take a pause letting all the air go out on its own. No rush.
4. Now take a deep breath through your nose, filling the lungs fully but not as much to cause discomfort. Both the chest and the belly should rise.
5. Pause for a second.
6. Exhale through your mouth. Let the air go out naturally, on its own until there’s none left.
7. Let yourself resume breathing without trying to control it.
8. Repeat after your breath settles again on its own.

The point of this exercise it to train a deep breath in a relaxed, uninterrupted context. This will come back to you when you take a deep breath anytime during everyday life. It’s as simple as that.

Counting your blessings
1. Get into a comfy position and bring your attention to your breathing.
2. Breath naturally, however it wants itself to be happening.
3. Start counting your breaths from 1 to 10 after you exhale remembering to let breathing be natural and unforced. Continue for few 10’s.
4. Now count before each breath for another few 10’s.
5. Next just watch yourself breathing without any counting effort or control for couple of minutes.

If you lose track during counting, count to 5 or 3, it doesn’t really matter at this point. The important part is that you stay focused on your breathing with relatively clear head and calm. If you lose count, just bring you’re your attention to the exercise (and never beat yourself up about it). Later during everyday life, even awareness of your own breath will have refreshing and calming effect if you practice enough.

Making it your own
Now let’s combine those three exercises into one practice…
1. Sit with your back straight or lie down on a harder surface.
2. Start observing and feeling your breathing without controlling it until it’s settled and regular.
3. Count your breaths after you exhale for another while.
4. Count your breaths before you inhale for a while.
5. Now go back to just observing your breathing, occasionally taking a deep breath from the second exercise.
6. You will know when you have enough so finish the exercise then.

That is pretty much it. I purposefully avoided being too specific as everyone is different, and you will have to find out the specifics for yourself experimenting with this practice. It’s all about self-investigation and cultivating the calmness while breathing aware, in a formal practice. Later it sort of applies itself during everyday life with a simple deep breath or just bringing attention to your breathing.

Progressive Relaxation

First broadly published in the year 1938 by Edmund Jacobson MD, progressive relaxation technique made itself a good name and place among the most effective methods for relieving stress. It’s based on one simple principle we can also apply to other physical relaxation techniques.

The principle is that whenever we get stressed and anxious, our bodies become tense and some of those tensions actually “stick” or “get stuck”, remaining in our muscles. Dr Jacobson found out that by addressing those tensions we can reduce stress levels (including anxiety, the mental stress), without even a need to address them on psychological level. Over the years this principle stayed untouched unlike the instructions for practicing it. You can find as many different versions of this method as there are websites mentioning it, so I’ll say it up-front: Do it however you feel is right and look around for a set of instructions that you find most pleasing.

The technique can be practiced in two ways depending on your experience and current needs. “Active” progressive relaxation is practiced by tensing a group of muscles on purpose for about 5 seconds, then relaxing them for 20-30 seconds. The purpose of this is to let yourself feel the difference between a tense and relaxed muscle. By practicing it, over time you’ll gain a skill you will then be able to apply to “passive” progressive relaxation, which is simply directing you attention to a group of muscles and just relaxing them with experience from the active progressive relaxation telling you how a relaxed muscle feels like.

Below you’ll find a relatively short version of active progressive relaxation I put together to illustrate the idea, but as I mentioned, with this technique, get the principle and do whatever you like. Be careful though with your neck and back, especially if you suffer any injuries.

1. Sit down comfortably in loose clothing and quiet environment. You can also lie down on your back if you prefer. You can close your eyes if you like to involve your imagination some more in this exercise.

2. Take a deep breath through your nose, if possible, hold for a second, and exhale through your mouth. You can articulate this by thinking “Calm” or whichever word you like that feels right to you. Repeat few times until you noticeably feel calmer and more settled.

3. Make a fist clenching one of your hands for 5 seconds. Then relax the hand observing how it feels in comparison for 20-30 seconds. When relaxing the tension, you can think “Calm” or whatever word you like, in this step and the following steps.

4. Straighten your arm with your palm facing the floor and lift your fingers up pulling them backwards. Hold this tension for 5 seconds and relax for 20-30 seconds. Notice how your entire arm reacts to it and feels.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 with the other arm.

6. Close your eyes tightly and wrinkle your nose for 5 seconds and let go of the tension. Observe the feeling for a while.

7. Clench your teeth and make a frowny face for 5 seconds and let go for 20-30 seconds as in all the previous and following steps. Be careful though not to damage your teeth (be reasonable as with any back and neck tensing).

8. Gently pull your chin down with your mouth closed towards your chest. Relax then and observe.

9. Breath in and squeeze your shoulders together flexing them back. Let go of the tension and feel the difference.

10. Tighten your stomach muscles. This is relatively safe if you don’t suffer any back injuries so let yourself go with this one. Really feel the difference between tense and relaxed muscles.

11. Pull back your toes towards your head as much as you can. You can do each leg separately or do them together. Once again, the practice is for you to enjoy.

12. Take a deep breath again and gently move every joint in your body a little, bottom to top, trying to feel that “relaxed feeling” as you go through your entire body.

Remember, always be mindful of any injuries, especially when it comes to neck and back.

Those are just sample instructions. I strongly recommend you look around for other progressive relaxation instructions and assemble a set of muscle groups that you find comfortable to work with. Afterall it’s all about you when you do it and you shouldn’t limit yourself to predetermined instructions from one source.

After a while working with active approach, you’ll learn to relax your muscles with simple awareness of the tensions and your previous experience dealing with them. This is not a rocket science. This is as simple as that.

Autogenics

Autogenics is a Western method utilizing our Mindfulness faculty (body mindfulness to be specific) with a detailed and graspable approach. In it we open ourselves to experience heaviness, warmth, coolness, and calmness in our bodies following any given set of instructions memorised or played from a recording. I recommend checking our MeditAid Mindful website for such recordings in very near future.

Autogenics Method

Get organised to have 30 minutes of uninterrupted time in your home. That includes turning off the phone and not having to deal with anything. More involved and distractions free, the better. Remember it’s Your Time. If possible, get a room heated or cooled to 23-24°C so you can both feel both the warmth and the coolness on your body. Wear something light and comfortable with some skin exposed to the ambient air and some covered with the clothing.

1. Lie down on comfy surface like a bed or sit in a recliner chair. Unlike the usual mindfulness practice, it’s encouraged to get really comfy and in the worst-case scenario you’ll fall asleep and have a short nap. If this happens, reduce the comfort, play more intense or eventful music, or have a light coffee before the next time you try. It’s very important to never beat yourself up if problems arise so be cool.

2. Heaviness. Take a few deep breaths through your nose, exhaling through you mouth. Try to feel what part of your body feels heavy. Focus a little on that feeling of heaviness and maybe think or whisper "heavy" on your next exhale. After a while, try to feel this heaviness everywhere in your body. Try for example, to feel it in left hand for a while, then move your attention higher in the arm up to your shoulder. Repeat with the other hand. Do it briefly for entire body.

3. Calmness. Bring your attention to your heart and feel the calmness with which it beats. If it’s beating fast, try to focus on your breathing, and slow it down with gentle breaths. Look around your body for a place that feels calm. Focus a little on this calmness and then try to feel it elsewhere in your body just like in the previous step of this exercise.

4. Warmth. Bring your attention to a place in your body that is well covered and warm. Focus on this warmth and look for it elsewhere on your body. Observe it with open-minded acceptance of whatever may arise for you to feel.

5. Coolness. Look with your attention for a place on your body where you’re feeling coolness. Observe this sensation for a good while and then look for other places on your body where you may feel this way.

6. Take a few deep breaths and focus on what you hear around you. Realize the surrounding space. Slowly open your eyes and move around your limbs. Tap yourself on your shoulder with a “well done” attitude and remember how silly it has been two minutes ago when you got mad at yourself when something didn’t work. That’s very important for this exercise.

This is it! I haven’t mentioned any times on purpose. Aim to practice at least 20 minutes a session and spend some extra time on parts of the exercise that feel nice or interesting. It’s all about self-investigation after all and more personalized exercises you do, probably more you’ll going to get out of them. Feel free of course to look elsewhere for other instructions and remember that two things matter, the exercises' principle and you. The rest is just a detail.

Guided Imagery

This the easiest and most “working out of the box” method for mind, body, and spirit relaxation. In Guided Meditations, all the work is done for you while you comfortably sit or lie down and get carried away into a meditative state with pre-recorded guide voice. They’re work well when sitting or lying in a comfy position so for now you can avoid the posture nightmare. They’re usually short too, taking 6-20 minutes which is enough to relax.

I highly recommend starting your relaxation or meditation journeys with this kind of exercise and let me explain why. Everyone should study matters of relaxation and meditation before trying it out. The question is how much. Some people have that “Beginners Mind” serving them well and they shouldn’t read too much in order to preserve it. Others may need to read entire books to know how to meditate, so it’s up to an individual and their predispositions. Now, it doesn’t matter which extreme you belong to, Guided Meditation will give you a taste of meditation practice without much theory, which is great for anyone, especially for the beginners.

If you want to try this for yourself, just find a suitable recording on our website or elsewhere. It’s best to have it downloaded or burnt onto a CD for reliability. It’s very important to give yourself some free, quiet time before and after the exercise. In those matters, the context in which you practice is as important as the practice itself, so try to make a relaxed and unurgent atmosphere for yourself. You may also listen to the recording beforehand to know it and be able to trust it more while relaxing. Before you start, just take a sit, or lie down and breathe a little to generally slow down and relax. You could make for yourself a nice cup of tea which will be waiting for you to finish and ease out of the exercise smoothly.

We offer some decent guided meditations on MeditAid Mindful, sourced from free-lance artists with commercial license. Later they will be also available for sale as downloads or CD’s at MeditAid Store. All our content is free for now and you’ll be able to find a lot of free stuff elsewhere on the Internet, but may I suggest, people who do it professionally for a price, usually do it good.

Meditation & Prayer

Meditation and prayer are greatly unappreciated methods nowadays. In this chapter we’ll focus on the spiritual aspect of them. If you’re looking for more info on meditation and mindfulness, please see the two other sections.

As I might have mentioned, spirituality is all about how we relate to everything outside of ourselves. May it be God or the Universe, or just “the outside”. Most people don’t consider this relationship as anything real or practical, but unfortunately for them, they couldn’t be more wrong. Some people may have been brought up during a war and find peace when they close their eyes, and others may have been living a stress-free life but still feel an overwhelming weight of the world outside on their shoulders. Basically, nothing a little prayer or meditation won’t fix (and probably some volunteering…).

Our relationship with “the outside” comes up whenever we’re not focused on anything special, or for example when meeting new people, or dealing with people we don’t know, so I wouldn’t call it “impractical” or “not-real”. Imagine meeting a person for the first time, but before this, you already have an attitude for this person, you have an attitude for everyone. It is greatly oversimplified but I hope it’s enough to make my point. And the point is that if you prayed to your higher power for nicer people, you would open yourself for that possibility, and in turn they would sense it and be nicer to you. It couldn’t be simpler.

I understand it’s a very broad topic so I’ll restrain from posting any specific instructions, but I’ll make few points that can be helpful.

1. Great you Higher Power with praise and admiration. Not just in case they have a bad day, but for you to feel the gravity of the situation. If you’re a believer, use some short prayer acknowledging your higher power.

2. Speak your Truth. Whatever bothers you, that you can’t be simply sharing in a casual conversation. Make no adjustments whatsoever. Speak Your Truth the way You understand it.

3. Spend some time nurturing the connection with you Higher Power. Silence is completely fine, just try to feel it and/or visualise it.

4. Ask for realistic outcomes that are likely to happen. And remember, God is to much of a nice woman to let people win lotteries. Ask instead for help in working on yourself, for boost in character or anything that your higher power and you can work on together.

5. Take a moment silence. Let you Higher Power understand you clearly. Let your request “sink” a bit and savour just being with it.

6. Thank you God, The Universe, or simply the World for all the goodness you received so far. I can’t stress enough how important is the gratitude. Let me put it this way. If you deserved everything you have, you’d be fine. Fair and square. But when you’re grateful for what you have, you’ll feel gifted and uplifted like someone who cares about you was by your side all the time.

If you’re interested in this approach, visit MeditAid Mindful and check out the course “Meditative Prayer for the Non-Religious” (coming soon). Also, there’s a lot of little pocketbooks with meditations and prayers, which are perfect for your bus or train trip. I highly recommend spending the commute time not glued to a touchscreen.

Attitude

Attitude is perhaps the most important part of relaxation practice. People with right attitude usually don’t even have to spend time learning to relax or deal with their problems. Are their lives stress-free? Definitely not, but they have that special thing letting them laugh at their own problems and face any challenge with optimism. That special thing is Attitude. In this chapter I’ll lay out few very important attitudes (or character traits) which on their own could do better job than any formal method. It is the most effective way to relax but at the same time it’s the most difficult to achieve as we must change who we are directly at will and only few people are ready for this.

Gratitude
As I mentioned in the previous chapter, when you’re grateful, it’s like someone who cares is right there with you. Numerous scientific studies done over last couple of decades prove its power to change our lives. That’s right! Scientists and researchers in medical field study gratitude as a significant factor in physical and mental wellbeing. And of course, science aside, there’s a good reason why Christians thank God before eating. I can only speculate what it is, but I fully trust their judgement. It has a truly transformative effect making people generally happier and less grumpy. Socially, gratitude does miracles. There will be always some undesirable ungrateful individuals, but generally, thankfulness builds relationships on a noble ground as opposed to treating them as business transactions. As with all other attitudes (or character traits), gratitude can be, and should be cultivated for literally everyone’s sake. I’d like to propose a couple good ways of cultivating it.

One such way is thanking your higher power (or who or whatever you see fit) for your food whenever you eat. It’s a very easy to learn habit and thanks to effect food has on us, results are guaranteed. It makes sense too. You maybe earned the money you bought the food with, but think how many people worked hard, often with passion, to make it. You can be thankful to our Sun for illuminating the crops or entire universe for making your sandwich possible. It doesn’t really matter to who or to what you’re giving your thanks because you cultivate this trait either way.

Another interesting way to cultivate gratefulness is a gratitude journal. This way you can work on this attitude doing something tangible by purposefully expressing it using your own words. It’s like a regular diary or journal, only more, way more positive. Take some time each day to remember any good things that happened to you or your close ones. Write it down, including how grateful you are. Put together few sentences each time about your thankfulness itself. Well, write an essay if you’ve got the time, just make sure to self-investigate. Note in your journal the effects of your work too.

Self-Compassion
We all tend to blame ourselves if we don’t succeed in what we do, and in self-care (may it be relaxation or any kind of meditation) it’s a major hindrance to our progress. It literally stops us on our way to better ourselves.

When I first got meditation lessons in Dublin Buddhist Centre, I was advised to practice Cultivation of Loving Kindness which includes self-compassion. But, of course, me being smart and wise, I thought since I’m very compassionate person, I’ll leave that for later and focus on concentration and mindfulness. That was a big mistake. Only now I realize, though an angel to other people, I was beating myself up like I really, really hated myself. Don’t make the same mistake.

In my opinion and experience, the best way to cultivate self-compassion is to meditate on it, and when I say meditate, I mean find a moment and use your imagination to create and cultivate some creative feelings. We do this by imagining and feeling loving kindness towards ourselves. Do this in a quiet time, in bed or comfy chair. Try to create an environment without distractions. The original method includes feeling loving kindness towards oneself, a friend, a neutral person, and a difficult person. I would recommend to do all of them in this order. You could also go directly to instructions for the Buddhist Metta Bhavana i.e., Cultivation of Loving Kindness meditation.

Another easy way to cultivate self-compassion, is to make a reminder you wear or have nearby, that will remind you when you’re hard on yourself. Then you will try to be just cool with yourself, not blaming, not regretting. It would help if you put some work making this reminder to load it with positive emotions.

Self-Inquiry, Open-Mindedness, Humour
Without open-mindedness we can’t make much progress and without humour our experience can affect us badly. That’s why, in my opinion it’s not even any fancy self-improvement, it’s a must have attitude. Self-Investigation is also a must as there’s no recipe for working on your own case. It’s perhaps the most important attitude as without it we can keep applying countless methods that have no meaning to us. Take Gratitude and Self-Compassion for happiness or Self-Enquiry and Open-Mindedness for success. Or may I suggest both! Just stay aware how much your attitude and what you want means in the world.

There are many interesting ways to cultivate those traits and I’m not going to bother you with my best. The best thing is for you to google them and read few dozen credible blog articles. Those matters are pretty much popular these days and I guarantee you’ll find a lot of direction in this area.

Activities

You’ve probably just read a lot of dry information on how to relax using fancy relaxation methods, but before you begin, consider adding some healthy activities to the mix. From exercise to volunteering, there are plenty of them that will help you relax and be happier (or less miserable).

Exercise
Exercise is the most common, and according to many professionals, the most effective activity we can do to feel better and relieve stress. It’s generally advised to exercise much. I mean 1 hour a day “much”, but for the less fortunate ones with lesser fitness, 10-minute walk three times a day is enough to get better. Exercise, apart from lowering stress levels and cleansing our brains, increases our resilience to stress and generally puts us in better mood. As with my previous advice from previous chapters, do whatever you like. Find yourself a set of exercises that you fell are right for you. If “they” push you to do powerwalking and you like swimming, go swimming. Of course, listen to your doctor, but besides that, It’s about you and your enjoyment.

Hobbies
Hobbies have an amazing effect on us if we choose wisely. You know yourself if a hobby gives you rush or calms you down. There’s no other way to find one for yourself than to try some that you feel you might enjoy. Those relaxing hobbies set aside a time of your day to forget about your troubles and devote yourself to leisure instead of stressing over daily problems. Try to be open-minded. Something that may seem lame at first may turn out to be a quite good fit. For me, for example, writing content is stressful, but that’s my sacrifice. What relaxes me, is working with graphics and audio, taking care of my plants, and playing peaceful video games in which I cultivate and build instead of fighting and destroying.

Music
Music is scientifically proven to help with mental well-being. Active listening to music stimulates the neocortex in our brain, calming the mood and reducing impulsivity. It’s worth to mention that thou choosing music to match our mood help us to express our emotions, it can get us stuck in them as well. Try being mindful of those things as self-inquiry mentioned in the previous chapter means the difference between success and failure.

As well as music has its effects on us, analysing and interpreting lyrics can help us come to terms with our emotional issues. It can express and enlighten complex emotional matters by putting us in a mood and giving us the lyrics to direct our thinking.

It goes without saying, of course, playing musical instrument or producing music digitally would be an ultimate form of music activity.

Nature
Spending time in nature is another great way of chilling out and finding yourself. I can’t praise being with nature enough, and I spend an enormous amount of time in forests, at lakes, in mountains, and at seashores. It’s a nice place to take a break from everyday complex lifestyle forcing us to feel certain ways, and just come back to ourselves. Also, a nature set is a perfect environment for relaxation techniques and meditation, and spending time in nature is a form of meditation in itself.

Doing nothing in particular
If your usual day involves a lot of habits, planning, and structure, you can try setting aside a half an hour each day to do absolutely nothing in particular. Do nothing or do some random things, it doesn’t really matter. You can try to do something spontaneous and completely out of usual order to keep things interesting. You can use your commute time, if you use public transport or taxies, to just look at the view outside the window and do nothing. I know it relaxes me; you should try for yourself.

Relaxation Skill

As I mentioned few times before, relaxation is more of a skill than any tangible technique. However, those techniques will serve as useful tools to help you develop that skill. You’ll be able to use skills learned practising many relaxation methods all at once or interchangeably in daily life at will. That, of course, won’t be invisible to other people and only you will know you are actively relaxing. Imagine being un-irritable and always cool… That’s something very real to say at least.

The first thing I would recommend is to try few different methods for at least two weeks each. You can do few of them at different times of the day. Then pick at least two favourites and go from there. Remember it’s all about diligence and self-inquiry. Do your self a favour and consider it really. Another useful thing would be a journal of your relaxation efforts describing your exercises and self-observations.

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