When you become aware of feeling stressed:-
- Say STOP to yourself.
- Breathe in deeply through your nose; breathe out slowly through your mouth. As you do so, let your shoulders sag, clench your hands tight and then release.
- Breathe deeply again as before, and as you breathe out, clench your teeth hard and then release.
- Breathe quietly and shallowly for a moment or two.
- Now continue with what you were doing.
This can be repeated as often as necessary during a stressful situation.
There are a number of things that you can do to enhance your feeling of relaxation and to control stressful feelings. Things such as starting meditation of any kind, learning yoga, t'ai ch'i or visualisation will all be invaluable and they all have two common elements: -
- A method of regulating the breathing. Breathe deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth in a regular rhythm. As you continue to breathe in this manner, gradually allow your breathing to adjust to its own depth.
- A method of focussing the mind. This may be on movement, as in t'ai ch'i, on posture, as in yoga, on a mental image, as in visualisation, on a sound or mantra, as in some types of meditation or on an object such as a candle flame as in other types of meditation.
These techniques all require practice in order to become effective, but if you commit between 15 and 30 minutes of each day to the practice of your chosen method, you will find that you become calmer and more relaxed, and that over time, this state becomes permanent, or almost so.