TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

For people suffering from stress, "Psychological first AID" can be provided to relieve the tension and there are various ways to do that.
Different activities can help people to relax : singing, listening to music, going for a walk, taking time to talk with friends with whom feelings and experiences can be shared.

There relaxation techniques can be very useful and effective for people suffering from stress, anxiety and psychosomatic disorders :

• Breathing exercises
• Muscular relaxation
• Meditation

These exercises should be done in a quiet place where nothing or nobody can be a disturbance, wearing loose clothes and, twice a day, for at least ten minutes, preferrably before meals. It is also important to be concentrated when doing the exercice and not think about other things.

The regular practice of these exercises can really help to find peace of mind, tanquility and calm in various tituations and hence, improve physical health.

Breathing Exercises
Learn to breathe, slowly and deeply, with you abdomen. Putting your hand on it, you can feel it expand, when you breathing you can count when you breathe in and out. For example you can count u to three, for example, for each breathing. With further practice you can incrase the counting during each breathing to help you to breathe more deeply and slowly.

Be careful not to become sleepy or dizzy. Do not exaggerate or accelerate your breathing.

To help you concentration, you can focus your attention on the airflow in your nose.

Muscular Relaxation
This is a very good exercise when, due to stress, muscles are continuously contracted, and / or the patient has headache, backache, neck pain, joint pains and feels weak and tired.

For this exercise, lie down on your back, on a bed or a mat. Lay your arms on each side close to your body with the palms upwards. Observe your breathing as mentioned above.

Starting from your toes, relax each part of your body. First you consentrate your thoughts on your feed and thing deeply "my feed are relaxed, very relaxed" and try to feel the relaxation spreading in your feet. Then move up step by step to your ankles, legs, thinhs, abdomen chest, arms, hands, soulders, neck and head. For each part of your body you should think "my is relaxed, very relaxed" In each part of your body you should feel the relaxation and tranquility spreading.

At the end of the exercise, the whole body should be deeply relaxed, almost "lifeless". Experience the feeling or relaxation in you whole body for a few minutes.

At the end of the exercise do not get up suddenly. Slowly move slightly some part of your body and then get up slowly.

Meditation
Meditation is practiced seated with the back straight. Legs may be crossed in the lotus position for those who are flexible enough and feel comfortable like this.

The simplest practice of meditation is to attentively observe your breathing and focus your mind on the airflow in the nostrils or on the movements of your abdomen. You may start by counting each breathing by series of 10 and then, when the mind is well enough concentrated, you just keep focusing on the air you inhale and exhale.

Another technique is to choose an object, an idea or a word, a symbol of peace or aword of wisdom.

The most important is to keep the concentration on the object of your meditation. if you feel that your mind becomes distracted, comes back to your object. If you feel that other ideas come to your mind, do not follow them and let them go away peacefully, just keep focusing on your object.

Sources : Health Massenger, http://www.activefitnessworld.com/articles/yoga/yoga_workout.php