Action4Balance

Chronic stress can lead to a variety of health and emotional problems. Yoga is an effective method to reduce stress and anxiety.

Yoga for Stress Relief is dating back over 5000 years, yoga is the oldest defined practice of self development.

Yoga’s Effects On the Body: The following is only a partial list of yoga’s benefits:

• reduced stress
• sound sleep
• reduced cortisol levels
• improvement of many medical conditions
• allergy and asthma symptom relief
• lower blood pressure
• smoking cessation help
• lower heart rate
• spiritual growth
• sense of well-being
• reduced anxiety and muscle tension
• increased strength and flexibility
• slowed aging process

How Does It Compare To Other Stress Reduction Methods?

As yoga combines several techniques used for stress reduction, it can be said to provide the combined benefits of breathing exercises, stretching exercises, fitness programs, meditation practice, and guided imagery, in one technique.

However, for those with great physical limitations, simple breathing exercises, meditation or visualization might be a preferable option and provide similar benefits.

Yoga also requires more effort and commitment than taking stress vitamins.

Recommended:

Yoga resources on Amazon.com

Yoga resources on  iTRAIN.com

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Sleep is essential for our health and wellbeing. It allows our body to rejuvenate and restore itself. Sleep deprivation is one of the biggest causes of aging. Tiredness can also affect your mood and how you feel. Chronic tiredness can increase your risk of depression and anxiety. It can also affect the way that you respond and react to the people around you.

It can also affect your cognitive ability and your ability to use your brain. This can cause you to be less constructive and creative. It can also decrease your ability to think quickly which may impair your ability to drive or do daily tasks. There is no set amount of time that everyone needs to sleep, since it varies from person to person. Studies indicate that people are generally most effective when they sleep an average of 7 hours, but people can find anywhere between 5 and 7 hours okay for them.

Insomnia and stress can be caused by deficiencies in certain nutrients .The foods that we eat can help us to gain those nutrients and help us sleep.

These 7 simple foods can help us get a good night's sleep at last so that we can feel refreshed and energized in our daily life.

Bananas

Bananas are a delicious sleepy time fruit. They balance melatonin and serotonin levels, which are the neurotransmitters necessary for deep sleep. They also contain magnesium, which is a muscle relaxant.

Chamomile tea

Chamomile is a mild sedative that calms and relaxes, making it the perfect natural antidote for restless minds and bodies.

Honey (preferably raw honey)

While sugar is stimulating, honey helps the brain to turn off because it contains orexin, a recently discovered neurotransmitter that's linked to alertness.

Potatoes

Potatoes contain tryptophan, which will ensure you get your ZZZZZZZZs.

Oatmeal

Oats are a rich source of sleep inducing melatonin.

Almonds

A handful of almonds can help one relax and unwind because they contain the snooze helping nutrients tryptophan and magnesium.

Flaxseeds

Flaxseeds are a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids, which make them a natural mood lifter. Many have found that switching from olive oil (low omega-3) to walnut oil (high omega-3) and flaxseed-oil capsules (very high omega-3) helped sleep, balance, and even moods to improve.

For more info visit MotherNature.com 

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to sleep well, but the fact is that many people can’t.

The reasons range from troubling stressful life situations to physical problems and poor eating habits.

Whatever the cause, if you are having trouble sleeping, there are some simple things you can do to help remedy the situation. And the first thing is to determine if any of the most common sleep thieves are robbing you of much needed rest.

Rest Robbers

• Stress and Anxiety: This is by far the greatest source of insomnia. People lie awake trying to work out their problems, mourning the past and worrying about the future. (Read Herbs for Stress and Anxiety)

• Painful Physical Conditions: Any number of painful physical conditions can rob a person of sleep. Some of the most common sleep robbers are arthritis, back pain and tension headaches. Virtually any painful condition can rob an otherwise healthy person of a good night’s rest.

• Caffeine: Many people sabotage their sleep by consuming caffeine in coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate and over-the-counter headache medicines. Caffeine increases the production of the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, and can remain in the body for up to twenty hours! More than 80 percent of Americans consume caffeine on a regular basis, and the average American drinks three cups of coffee a day! If you are drinking too much caffeine, you cannot expect to get a good night’s rest.

• Medications: Quite a few medications can also contribute to sleeplessness. Decongestants, appetite suppressants, prednisone, thyroid medications, hormone replacements, some pain relievers, asthma and blood pressure medications, and certain antidepressants may cause insomnia. If you take these medications, don’t be discouraged; ask your doctor for advice if you’re experiencing trouble sleeping.

• Food Insomnia: Eating too much high-sugar food close to bedtime can cause your blood sugar level to rise and give you a burst of energy that makes it difficult to fall asleep. A few hours later, it can cause you to wake up in the middle of the night when your blood sugar suddenly drops again and you feel hungry. Low-carbohydrate diets can also cause a drop in blood sugar levels that wakes you up during the night with hunger.

• Exercise: Exercising stimulates the levels of stress hormones in your body, which may hinder your ability to fall asleep. To avoid this, do not exercise within three hours of bedtime.

• And…There are various other issues that can disturb your sleep, such as a bad mattress or  pillow, a snoring spouse, newborn baby or noisy neighbors. For middle-aged women, things like hot flashes can disturb sleep patterns.

Each of these “rest robbers” is responsible for countless hours of lost sleep, productivity and creativity, and reduced mental health.

Plus - when we lose sleep as a result of 'rest rubbers', our body does not get the rest it needs to recover from the exertions of the day. The toxic load builds up, because our sleep period is the time the body uses to rid itself of toxins. Plus we do not the necessary rest and our level of fatigue builds up.

Related Artilcles:

Sleep and Stress Relief

Planning a Perfect Night’s Sleep

How to Deal with Stress induced Sleep Deprivation

Our body responds to stress and anxiety provoking thoughts and events with muscle tension. This tension in turn, increases the experience of stress and anxiety.

Deep muscle relaxation is not only very easy to learn and practice but also extremely effective stress reduction technique: it reduces physiological tension and is incompatible with anxiety, panic and worries.

If you can relax you can control stress. Guaranteed!

Click HERE to read full entry.

Take a deep breath. Hold it for a moment, and then exhale. Feel more relaxed? Breathing exercises indeed are very effective ways to relax.

Beathing is a necessity of life and we tend to take it for granted.

When you are get stressed the body becomes tense and the breathing shallow and fast reducing our oxygen intake which can leave you with a feeling of panic and anxiousness.

As a result:

1. You breathe in less oxygen and breathe out less toxic waste product carbon dioxide.
2. Your muscles ache and you feel pain especially in the neck and shoulder area.

Improper breathing contributes to anxiety, panic attacks, depression, muscle tension, tension headaches, and fatigue.

However you can do it the other way round as well - when you relax your body you can effectively reduce stress.

Deep breathing is a very simple but an essential stress reducer – energy builder for women.

Deep breathing for just one minute tones your entire body, increases body oxygen and relieves fatigue and balances the serotonin, the chemical that regulates happiness in you brain!

It also reduces hot flashes in menopause women.

It works well in conjunction with other relaxation techniques such as progressive muscular relaxation, visualization and meditation for stress relief.

Take Action:

• Inhale through the nose slowly and deeply to count of five (Make sure that the stomach and abdomen expand but the chest does not raise up)
• Exhale through the mouth, slowly and completely, making a quite, relaxing, whooshing sound like a wind as you blow gently out. Relax your mouth, tongue and jaw; also to the count of five.
• To help quiet the mind, concentrate fully on breathing and counting through each cycle.
• Repeat five to ten times and make a habit of doing the exercise several times a day, even when not feeling stressed.

While a deep breathing exercise can be learned in some minutes and you will experience immediate stress relief, the profound effects of this exercise may be fully appreciated only after month of persistent practice.

TIP: Start practicing the deep breathing for stress reduction when NOT stressed. When in stressful situation you will be able to do it automatically in order to obtain the stress relief. When under pressure and stress you could find useful to use herbal remedies for stress relief to obtain feeling of balance and wellbeing.