Breathing Techniques (Meditation)
Harnessing the power of the body’s natural relaxing response can be extremely useful when trying to relieve stress. Breathing techniques can activate this response in the body. For this reason, Meditation can be an important weapon in a person’s stress management arsenal.
Yoga exercises can greatly reduce stress in the participant. Yoga originated in prehistoric India and was an important part of Hinduism, Buddhism and a few other Eastern religions. Over the years, Western society picked up several techniques of the discipline and incorporated them in stress relieving routines.
Yoga deep breathing is a very good way to successfully relieve stress. To utilize this technique, the person must find a quiet place to relax and position themselves in a comfortable manner. Once the person is in a relaxing position, they exhale and then deeply inhale through their nose, counting slowly to five. Next, the person holds the air in their lungs, counts slowly to two, then exhales through their nostrils while counting to two. The person continues this method until their breath has slowed. After the breath has slowed, they exhale to double the count of the inhale. For example, if the person stays with the five count inhale, they will exhale for a count of ten. The inhale count is free to change to whatever works best for the practitioner.
Ujjayi (sound) breathing may be applied during deep breathing to increase its effects and is utilized by closing off the back of the throat while exhaling. Once a person is comfortable with exhaling in this manner, they apply the technique to their inhale. Eventually, the technique will be applied to both the inhale and the exhale, causing a humming noise that the person can focus on, thus blocking out any interfering factors.
Incorporating Visualization
Visualization techniques mixed with breathing techniques help the practitioner stay focused. It is common for outside factors to interfere with breathing techniques, but visualization can help block out those unwanted forces.
The first step of the visualization breathing technique is to find a quiet place and become comfortable. Once this is achieved, the person breaths from their diaphragm, inhaling slowly through their nose and exhaling through their mouth. Eventually, the person will feel their breathing become slower, signaling that it is time to move on to the next step. Once the person’s breath is slow, they imagine a white (or whatever color they find to be most relaxing) light encompassing their entire body as they inhale. As the person exhales, they imagine the light washing away all the stress.
Incorporating Audio Aides
After a long day’s work, it may be a great idea to incorporate audio aides with breathing techniques. Audio aides can help a person block out unwanted noise and also help switch on the body’s relaxing response.
The most important part of using audio aides in stress management is for the person to pick the proper aide, which could be anything from classical music to ocean noises. Once a person finds the most relaxing audio aide, they need to simply find an isolated spot and turn it on. Audio aides can be incorporated into any breathing technique. For instance, if a person’s chosen aide is ocean noises, they can incorporate it into the visualization technique. This can be done by envisioning a wave washing over the person as they breath in and then envisioning the wave receding, washing away all the stress as they exhale.
Meditation can be a great way to relieve the problematic stress that people face on a daily basis. Most techniques are quick and can be done anytime. All that’s needed is a quiet, secluded place and a basic understanding of breathing. After a few rounds of this technique, the person should feel more relaxed and inflicted with less stress.