5 ways to release stress in seconds

by Christianne
in blog
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5 ways to release stress in seconds

I have been teaching and practicing meditation for years, but it’s not always easy to get into a meditative state when you are highly stressed. If I suggested meditation, when you are at your highest level of anxiety, you’d probably want to punch me, and then that may offer you some release

However, there are some other great pre-cursers I use and teach when you need to find some instant resolution to your highly charged life, and they take a matter of minutes or even seconds to start working.

But first let’s talk about what happens to you physically when you are stressed.

  • Your heart beats faster, your breathing becomes shallower and faster paste. Because your breathing is faster you are not stretching out the whole rib cage and diaphragm area, so that can become tight and tense, causing you to either want to eat more or not want to eat at all.
  • And then when you shallow breathe you then can create tension in the shoulders.
  • Your digestion becomes impaired because the stress response sends a signal to your body to work hard on your vital organs, and so the colon is the least important- so then you can get indigestion/Ibs/constipation. Your cortisol levels are raised which is your stress hormone – so that then interrupts your sleep pattern, makes you want to eat sugary/carby foods and caffeine, and makes you hold onto fat in your body, particularly around the tummy.

All this can happen to you in a matter of seconds, minutes or days, so if we can send signals to the body very quickly that it doesn’t have to respond to stress in quite the same way, then the after affect won’t be so accumulative.

Like I said tell a stressed person to calm down, they probably don’t know the first way to do that.

So here are some very simple but highly effective ways to lower your cortisol, lower tension, balance your heart rate and then not feel stressed!!

 

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1. Breathing – One of the top ways to rid stress is to focus on your breathing. Because your pulse and breathing can go really out of whack when the stress levels raise-  by just focusing on your breathing then your pulse instantly lowers, which means your breathing become less rapid and this in turn sends a signal to your body to calm down. So breathe in deeply, working your diaphragm, making sure you are not using your shoulders. Allow all the breath to expand, and count 5 breaths in and 5 breaths out. Do this for at least 60 second

 

 

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2.Breath technique 2 –  Another great breathing technique is to breathe in deeply, hold your breath, then breathe out and keep breathing out as far as you can. Then hold your breath for 1 second and then try and breathe out a tiny bit more. Then relax and breathe normally. This really increases the lung capacity and allows you to increase strength and flexibility in your diaphragm, which means you instantly feel more relaxed. Repeat 2-5 times.

3. Walking meditation- simply telling you to meditate when stressed may not compute, so then walking meditations can really help a busy mind. Take a few minutes out to walk very, very, slowly, heal and then toe, being really aware of how your heal feels as it touches the floor/ground, and then how that feels moving through the foot to the toe. Also practice your slow breathing as you do this. When you focus on your body, and your breath, it takes your attention away from the future and stress, and brings you to the present with mindfulness.
4. Tense and release – you can do this one sitting, lying or standing. Tense your whole body altogether, squeezing your fists, clenching your buttocks, pulling your abs in, every part of you tight, for 5 seconds. Now just release, and as you release take 3 deep breaths in. Then repeat again 3-8 times. You will feel instantly more relaxed.

 

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5. Stretch – because your body tightens up when stressed, doing some simple stretching can send another signal to your body that you are now more relaxed. It can also lower your pulse and calm your breathing. The areas that tend to get the most tense are your neck, shoulders back and stomach. So spend a few seconds on each area and you will feel much more free from anxiety issues. Yoga is also amazing for relieving stress.

If you do have a bit more time and inclination to consistently work on reducing your stress levels, then working out regularly, yoga and meditation all help massively. But also your diet plays a big part in the release of your stress hormones. So lowering your sugar, caffeine and alcohol intake- which you think will  passify you, but like a drug, will actually heighten your anxiety levels long term- will be the biggest help.

But to start with just breathe ❤️

We have 3 rooms left on our Body Rescue Retreat on 28th Sept- 1st October. If you are interested in coming and learning more ways to feel amazing- then email info@bodyrescue.net

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