Beware of stress! Where does it come from and how to deal with it?

How to relax the body from tension, and thereby relieve stress and calm down? Today, we will talk about how to relieve severe tension in the body in simple ways that a child can do.

In these stressful times, people rarely manage to relax.

This is partly due to the fact that most techniques for relaxation and relaxation require a lot of time. And at the same time, they cannot be used directly during a stressful situation.

The ability to cope with stress for a few minutes or even a second is a fundamental requirement for emotional survival and physical health.

But before we get into the methods themselves, let's figure it out.

What is stress and where does it come from?

We are accustomed to perceiving stress as something negative, but in fact it is simply a reaction of the body, a response to overstrain, strong emotions, both positive and with a negative connotation. In this condition, the hormone adrenaline is actively produced, forcing a person to think about the situation and look for a way out of it. Causes of stress can be :

• conflicts with colleagues, relatives, friends;
• dissatisfaction with yourself, your achievements or appearance;
• constant lack of money, debts;
• routine lifestyle without vacation, proper rest;
• illness or death of a loved one;
• job loss;
• loneliness.

Recently, stressful conditions have often developed against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic. This is caused by a constant fear of getting sick, a strong concern for loved ones, and the inability to maintain the usual way of life.

How does stress develop?

But when stress occurs too often or exceeds the body’s capabilities, it begins to weaken and lose strength.
It can even lead to serious illness. three phases in the development of stress :

• mobilization of the body's defenses and resources to combat the stress factor. At this stage, hormones are released that give a boost of energy;
• confrontation - searching for a way out of the situation. The body tries to return to normal functioning due to hormonal changes;
• exhaustion – with prolonged exposure to traumatic circumstances, the body loses the ability to resist, adapt and becomes vulnerable to all kinds of diseases.

The severity of each stage depends on the individual characteristics of the person, his state of health, type of temperament, character.

The relaxation technique includes 3 steps:

1. Put off solving the problem that bothers you for a while.
2. Engage in relaxation for 2-3 minutes, using one of the methods given below.
3. Once you are free of tension, return to solving the original problem.

1. How to relax your body from tension - a break

When you are upset, you probably begin to involuntarily hold your breath - you breathe more shallowly, and sometimes even completely hold your breath.

This happens unconsciously, because deep breathing opens access to emotions, to feeling. At the same time, when a person breathes shallowly, tension in the body automatically turns on, because it’s not for nothing that you breathe this way, which means there is some kind of danger.

Releasing the breath is one of the main ways to relax and relieve tension in the body and a way to “throw everything out of your head.”

Put aside all the problems that are bothering you at the moment. You can come back to them whenever you want, but nothing will happen if you give yourself a break and stop thinking about them for a few minutes.

For 3 minutes, breathe slowly, calmly and deeply, breathe into your stomach. You can even close your eyes if you prefer. If you want to. then count to five when you inhale and to seven when you exhale.

Spending more time exhaling creates a mild, calming effect. Imagine that when you enjoy this deep, leisurely breathing, all your worries and troubles disappear...

Taking a breather is a relaxation technique. But at the same time, it can also work as a means of distracting attention, taking thoughts away from your problems at least for a few minutes.

1. Think tenderly

You can relax your body from tension with the help of your imagination. This method is good at relieving tension from a certain part of the body.

Direct your attention to the tense muscle. Mentally see how hard this muscle has become, what does it remind you of? Concrete, granite, iron?

Imagine a burning candle that you hold in your hand. The wax melts and drops drop by drop onto your hand.

You feel its warmth. Your muscles begin to relax...

Feel the warmth in your muscle, and that your muscle turns into soft and warm wax...

You can imagine that your tense muscles turn into soft clay, cotton wool, foam rubber, soap suds, etc.

If the Think Gentle method helps you reduce stress by 10 or 20%, then you should use it. After some training, you will learn to relieve tension from your body within 1 minute.

1. Associations with peace and trust

To relax and relieve tension in your body, you can use any imagery associated with safety and trust.

For example, imagine yourself as a curled up sleeping kitten or a stretched out big fluffy soft cat...

To relax your face, you can imagine it in the form of a luxurious flower. Mentally picture its beautiful petals and shiny green foliage.

The flower is delicate and fresh and you can smell its scent. Take a deep breath and exhale smoothly, while imagining how the tension goes away.

1. Inanimate objects

You can relax and relieve stress by associating your feelings and emotions with inanimate objects. For example, imagine despair or helplessness as a tightly stretched rubber band.

You hold one end of the rubber band in your hands and it vibrates with tension... let go of the end and it contracts and the despair disappears.

Imagine your problem as a fishing line that gets caught on a snag in the water...

You cut the line and the problem went away...

Imagine that you are holding your unhappiness (problems, tension) in your hand clenched into a fist... Slowly open your palm and let the unhappiness disappear...

1. Relaxation and stress relief – “The Magic Word”

How to relax your body from tension? In addition to images, you can use some phrases and words that help relieve tension. Words have a magical power to influence our behavior and mood.

This method interrupts the flow of automatic thoughts and promotes refocusing and relaxation.

Choose simple words such as peace, rest, calm, calm, balanced, etc. Instead of words, you can count: 1001, 10002, etc., or use phrases like: “deep and even deeper relaxation.”

• Let thoughts run through your head, but don't let them take over your attention.
• Close your eyes and concentrate.
• Repeat a word, phrase, or count to yourself for sixty seconds.
• Breathe slowly and deeply.
• To better assimilate this method, first practice in a quiet place for at least 10 minutes.

Gradually your mind will learn to associate this method with relaxation. In the end, the tension will go away in two to three minutes, and then as soon as you mentally pronounce your cherished word or number.

Train, don't waste your time! Train your brain to relax your body!

Now, when you are suffering from tension, pain and anxiety, your brain considers this to be the norm!

If you start training and spend at least 15 minutes a day relieving tension in your body, then after a few weeks, relaxation will occur quickly and almost automatically as soon as you feel tension.

Start with these simple exercises; in order to learn how to relax, relieve anxiety and tension, you don’t have to use super complex techniques.

This is where I end, and I hope that you have received the answer to your question - how to relax the body from tension?

Be loved and happy!

Sincerely, family psychologist Natalia Gnezdilova.

IMPORTANT! DO NOT forget to download my gift for you “Brief instructions for relieving tension” + meditation in audio format for deep relaxation and stress relief!

Additional materials on this topic:

Symptoms and signs of chronic stress.

7 Ways to Relieve Emotional Stress

How to stop beating yourself up?

My courses and trainings

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Symptoms and signs of stress

There are a number of symptoms that
appear in most people who find themselves in a state of stress. Physiologically this manifests itself in:

• a sharp drop or, conversely, an increase in pressure;
• attacks of chills or fever;
• increased sweating;
• dizziness;
• digestive disorders;
• significant weight gain or loss;
• muscle hypertonicity and tremor (shaking).

Headaches, pain in the stomach and back often occur, and rashes similar to allergic ones may appear. Stress is accompanied by loss of sleep and appetite .

Where does tension in the body come from?

Tension in the body, in the muscles, indicates that you are in a state of stress when your body is filled with stress hormones:

• Cortisol
• Adrenaline

Stress hormones can only be removed from the body naturally:

• Relaxation, when all muscles relax and there is no tension;
• Active work of muscles in which hormones are processed.

It happens that you feel tension in one area, and most often there is pain in the area of ​​tension, for example, neck, lower back, legs, etc.

Why is there pain?

Because there is overstrain, but there is no signal about relaxation. In such cases, forced relaxation is required using techniques and exercises.

How does stress affect the body?

Severe or prolonged stress may well cause the development of diseases.
In this case, the most weakened systems of the body suffer, so the consequences vary from person to person. Against the background of a stressful state, the following may develop :

• bronchial asthma due to constant tension of the muscles involved in the respiratory system;
• hypertension, heart and vascular diseases due to constantly high blood pressure and rapid heartbeat;
• peptic ulcer;
• neurotic and depressive disorders;
• damage to the gastric mucosa due to increased production of gastric juice;
• diabetes – due to the liver releasing an additional portion of glucose and increasing its concentration in the blood;
• gynecological problems up to infertility.

It is impossible to predict exactly what problems stress will provoke. Moreover, they can appear individually or in groups, or all at once, in a complex.

How to avoid stress?

The effect of serious stress on the body is clearly negative. But doctors and psychologists have perfectly studied the mechanism of development of such conditions and have found many ways to prevent and combat them. The most interesting thing is that there is nothing complicated about preventive measures. For example, the following help prevent stress :

• morning exercises, regular sports training, especially those related to water (swimming, water aerobics);
• regular rest, preferably in nature;
• reasonable planning of the working day - alternating periods of intense work and proper rest;
• healthy sleep - at least 7-8 hours a day, not once a week, but every day;
• complete nutrition.

As you can see, these are typical tips for those who want to lead a healthy lifestyle
. Hence the conclusion: it is he who is the most terrible enemy of stress.

How to help yourself?

But if you constantly worry about one thing or another, neither 8 hours of sleep nor proper nutrition will help protect you from stress.
This means you need to pay attention to your mental health. First, you need to determine exactly what exactly worries and excites you, i.e. find the cause of stress. Having identified the source of the problem for yourself, look for ways to distract yourself, switch to pleasant activities, for example, meeting with friends, reading, going to the theater or concert. It also happens that the source of stress is part of your life, and there is no way to change it. But even in such a situation, no one bothers you to change your own attitude towards circumstances. It wouldn’t hurt to analyze your experiences, but do it as if from the outside. It is quite possible that it will turn out that the events that took place are not at all worth such strong emotions. Try to focus on the positive

,
because when we are upset, life situations seem much worse than they really are.

Why is there constant tension in the body?

The reason for constant tension in the body is caused by your emotional state, what is happening in your inner space, in your head, in your thoughts.

Does the body only react to what you think and how you think?

Your problems in life and the way you approach problems create tension in your body.

It is generally accepted that stress is always an external factor that a person cannot influence in any way.

But this is a big mistake! Of course, you cannot influence events, but you can influence your perception and reaction. If you want to live without tension, without stress hormones, then you should direct your attention and efforts in 2 directions at once:

• Learn to manage your emotions, not let them get carried away, because now you are rocking on the waves of emotions and cannot at all predict when the storm will begin and you will be overwhelmed by new stress.
• Learn to feel your body and relieve tension in the current moment, in the “here and now.”

Now, a little more about these points, because if you understand how important this is for you, then you will be able to live without tension in your body.

And life without tension in the body will depend only on you, and on how much you understand the processes occurring in your body?

How stress occurs and why it depends entirely on the emotional response, I wrote in this article “Relieve Emotional Stress.” I would just like to add that constant tension in the body indicates that stress has become chronic, and most likely, you have recently:

• you live like on a powder keg;
• a lot of things irritate and infuriate you;
• you dwell on the negative;
• few joyful events in life;
• and you feel exhausted, tired, without strength;
• It is quite possible that you have insomnia, which takes away the rest of your energy.

One thing you need to understand is that stress is not a physical object, it cannot be touched or seen.

Stress is the concentration of your emotions, your resistance to events. Yes, stress is expressed in hormones, but the production of hormones is triggered by your thoughts and emotions.

For example, you are driving and you are in a traffic jam... and you need to go to an urgent meeting...

What's going on in your head? What's happening to your body?

There are 2 options:

• freak out and get angry and pump yourself up with hormones;
• treat this event calmly and philosophically, because you cannot influence it in any way.

Unfortunately, the behavior of most people will correspond to option 1, when a person curses, curses the whole world, roads, life, himself, etc.

But there is another way to feel at this moment, for example, call and warn about the delay, and stop twitching while sitting in a traffic jam, think about some thought, a situation for which there was not enough time.

Or just spend this time on yourself, do some exercises to relieve stress. But

after all, the second option of behavior does not even come to mind... and this indicates an automatic reaction to a stressful situation, that there is a certain scenario of behavior that a person is not aware of at all, and, accordingly, does not control.

Such unconscious reactions to events are the main source of stress in your life, and there is only one way out - to learn to be more conscious and be able to manage your thoughts and emotions.

Regarding point 2 regarding the body.

To relax your body from tension, you need to feel your body well.

Tell me, I feel like this is my body?!

Notice how you know when your body is tense? This is not a stupid question... most often, recognition comes from the fact that you say to yourself in your head what and how is happening in your body.

This is not a feeling, it is “word of mouth,” when your internal dialogue does not stop for a minute, and with its statements brings anxiety and fear to you.

For example, did something prick you somewhere, did you immediately think about it, talk about it, or just feel it? When you focus information about your body on your inner voice, what most often happens is exaggeration or understatement, depending on the person’s character.

Your task is simply to learn to feel tension without stating it with your inner voice, and in this case, it will be much easier for you to relieve tension and relax.

If all else fails

But what to do if you signed up for fitness, walk the dog for a long time every evening, go to bed no later than 23.00 and are seriously interested in knitting, but you still can’t cope with stress? First of all, don’t despair
and don’t get depressed.
If you don't know how to change a faucet, you call a plumber, right? It’s the same with stress: if you couldn’t resolve the issue on your own, contact a psychotherapy specialist .
psychotherapeutic techniques are used to combat stress ,

so you will have the opportunity to choose what suits you:

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy – psychological training that allows you to identify negative thoughts, analyze them, change your behavior pattern, attitude towards a specific situation;
• art therapy – the so-called “art treatment”, which allows you to throw out emotions and understand yourself;
• auto-training – training in methods of controlling breathing and muscle tone, changing internal attitudes.

There are a lot of such methods; an experienced specialist will definitely help you choose the most suitable and effective option.

Feeling tense and anxious

Are feelings of tension and anxiety related?

Connected. And this is pure physiology. Any tension implies danger, and danger for a person is in the present in the “here and now”, for example, a real threat to life, but... there are no tigers and mammoths, therefore, there is no real danger and anxiety arises.

The psyche does not find a real threat, but what if I just don’t see and don’t know about this threat? And thus anxiety arises.

Anxiety is about the future, not necessarily about the distant future, in 10 minutes or in 2 minutes, the future will already come... To get rid of anxiety, you need to remove tension, to remove tension, you need to calm down and relax.

For those people who have constant tension and cannot relax, I have good news!

Especially for people who are stressed, experience tension in the body, are emotionally wound up, I wrote “Brief instructions for relieving tension in the body,” this is a cheat sheet that you can use in a moment of severe stress and calm down. To this instruction, I have added an audio meditation for deep relaxation - all this, completely FREE! Click here and take your peace of mind!

You will definitely succeed as soon as you stop being afraid of your own tension.

I'm afraid that I will have tension again, something will hurt and I will be anxious and scared, this is exactly the request you send to your unconscious, which, like a good magician, takes out of the chest what you ask.

Work with fear, and most likely, you will remove the root cause of your tension. How to work with fears, I wrote in this article.