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Coronavirus And Impact Of Panic
Ways to relax your mind and body are particularly useful during this coronavirus pandemic that requires a ‘stay at home’ directive amongst others. Being scooped in an apartment with six family members for days and weeks, even months brings its own stressful experience. If you have been used to a lifestyle that sees you outdoors 70% of the time, it is easy to understand what many people will be going through at the moment. However, it is important to keep yourself together during this difficult time by working to relax your mind and body.
How To Relax Your Mind
Ways to relax your mind and body include finding ways to get stress out of your system and help you feel better. The best ways to relieve stress are different for each person. Try some of these ideas to see which ones work for you:
Writing
There is evidence that writing about stressful events and circumstances may help relieve stress and improve diseases linked to stress. Write for 10 to 15 minutes a day about stressful events and how you felt. This can really help you identify the sources of stress in your life so that you can find better ways to cope with them.
Expressing your feelings
Talk, laugh, cry, and express anger when you need to. They are natural ways to release tension and frustration. Discussing how you feel with friends, family members, or an online counselor is an important way of coping with and relieving stress.
Reading
- This is the time to read your favorite books which before now you kept pushing to the next day, next week, or indefinitely. Avoid books that will get your blood racing in the wrong direction. Go for books that relax your mind, make you smile, laugh out loud, and in your mind take you to beautiful destinations.
- Energize your brain. Improve your knowledge of subjects that have always fascinated you. Learn to paint, play a musical instrument you bought years ago but never really had the time for, and learn to improve your singing or dancing steps.
- Mindfulness activities. Mindfulness activities help relax your mind and are often combined with body-centered relaxation exercises.
- Autogenic training consists of six standard exercises that make the body relax. For each exercise, you use visual images and verbal cues to relax your body in some specific way.
- Self-hypnosis can open your mind to suggestions that can relieve stress or change the way you respond to stress.
- Meditation focuses your attention on feeling calm and having a clear awareness of your life.
- Guided imagery (visualization) is a method of using your imagination to help you relax and release tension caused by stress. Your body responds to the images in your mind. Use these simple imagery exercises for relaxing or renewing your energy when you need to relax.
- Music therapy can relax your body, improve your mood, and change the pace of your day.
- Humor therapy is becoming widely accepted as a tool for reducing stress and boosting the body’s immune system.
Be in the moment
Try meditation, imagery exercises, or self-hypnosis. Listen to relaxing music. Try to look for humor in life. Laughter really can be the best medicine.
How To Relax Your Body
Ways to relax your mind and body include physical activity, body-centered relaxation, restful sleep, and magnetic field therapy.
Physical activity
These suggested exercises can be done in your home, in the garden if you access one, in an apartment, or in your bedroom. Exercise can reduce stress and the stress response.
- Aerobic exercise – the kind that increases your heart rate, such as dancing or exercising to a workout video, 5000+ steps around your apartment, and running up and down the stairs. Also, home bicycling and skipping rope are especially useful for counteracting the harmful effects of stress. Even everyday activities such as house cleaning or yard work can reduce your stress level if you do them vigorously. Stretching is also a good way to relieve muscle tension. Regular, moderate physical activity will help you manage stress.
- Engage in an enjoyable activity – A meaningful activity helps relieve tension. This can be gardening, writing, crafts, or art; or doing online volunteering work for a cause that benefits others. You have plenty of time at home to do something you enjoy which will help you relax and reduce stress from this compulsory ‘stay at home’ Covid-19 directive.
Body-centered relaxation
If you begin to experience physical symptoms of stress, body-centered relaxation skills are, particularly of benefits. These skills include breathing exercises, such as deep breathing; muscle relaxation which reduces tension in individual groups of muscles; shoulder and neck massage (you can ask your spouse, or family member to give you a massage or DIY; aromatherapy using aroma-producing oils to promote relaxation; and yoga, tai chi or qi gong which are forms of exercise and meditation.
Sleep–inducing plants
Place sleep-induced plants such as jasmine, aloe vera, peace lily, valerian, lavender, and snake in your room to aid a night of restful sleep. These plants are known to improve your sleep environment and help you sleep better.
Magnetic field therapy
Researchers believe treatment with magnetic fields may be useful in treating a number of health conditions, including problems related to stress.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html
Photo Credit: Creative Commons
