Free Stress Relief 2: Aromas

September 7, 2011 · Posted in Health, Self Improvement · Comment

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Pleasant memories are a package of sensations: sights, sounds, smells, temperatures. Really anything your senses can detect can be stored and associated with a memory. You may have grown up with a yard but for the past many years lived in the city. The smell of fresh cut grass could suddenly take you back to warm summer days when you were a child, carefree with no stresses of adult life. Sometimes scents can bring back memories we hadn’t accessed in so long we’d forgotten we had them.

There are a lot of aroma therapy oils, candles, sprays and other methods of delivering scents. Some of them can be really relaxing. I especially like the smell of pumpkin spice in the early fall as it reminds me of Thanksgiving, going back to school, and the weather getting cooler after long, hot summers in the south. Concentrated oils can be found in many stores and are a long lasting and inexpensive way to take your mind off your current troubles. But if you can’t afford oils, you may be able to gather all natural scents. Some suggestions are: fir branches or sap, pine cones/needles/bark, cloves, sage, thyme, various flower petals to your taste such as jasmine or rose, mint leaves, sassafras leaves or sticks.

You can take these ingredients and use several methods to release their scents. Grind up fresh leaves or flower petals. Prepare a hot bath and sprinkle them in the water. Take an orange and stick cloves in it til it looks like a prickly ornament and set it on a shelf in the kitchen. Simmer water with bark or leaves in it that you’ve gathered to make your own all natural potpourri. The possibilities of what to use are varied and will best be defined by what scents are most associated with good times. Just remember that all natural items are not treated with preservatives and won’t last as long as oils or other store bought items. So don’t leave that orange on the shelf for weeks.

Filling your home with relaxing scents is best used occasionally. If you use them all the time, the effects will fade as your mind begins to associate your current surroundings with the smells. So use them when you especially need to recover from a hard week or series of stressful events.

Tags: Smell Your Stress Away

Free Stress Relief 1: Sit in the Shower

August 25, 2011 · Posted in Health · Comment

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

Stress is a serious affliction for many in modern society. Because of this there are literally thousands of “stress relief” methods being sold: books, DVD’s, audio recordings, pills, diets, topical creams and all sorts of devices designed to reduce or remove stress from your life. But what is stress? Very simply it is your mind and body’s reaction to external influences. So is it worth it to buy products to remove stress (which may be costly for some and actually adding to financial stress)? I believe stress is a response and a response can be trained and modified.

We don’t want to fully relieve ourselves of all stress. Stress can allow us to better respond to things, giving us adrenaline to move faster and be more alert in a potentially harmful situation. We want to reduce the harmful, chronic stress that comes from long term situations like work, relationships, money, etc. Constant worry and fear will wear down the body and the mind. We need to give ourselves some “down time” from this worry. I suggest that for most people that can be accomplished by practicing various methods of self distraction.

This is a series on free or very inexpensive ways to reduce stress.

Tags: Raindrops Keep Falling

Jealousy

January 17, 2011 · Posted in Health · Comment

Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)

This post is in response to a twitter message asking my thoughts on Jealousy and how to get rid of it.

It’s important to understand the feeling and its source. Personally, I place it in the Fear Family of emotions. It can have various roots: uncertainty, distrust, a low self-esteem. The important thing when examining the feeling is to be honest with yourself and accept that you are the reason you feel jealous. Nobody else forces this on you.

Tags: jealousy, twitter

Movement and Stillness

January 1, 2011 · Posted in Health, Tao · Comment

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As with many things in Taoism, an interdependent duality is expressed about things which seem opposite of each other. Darkness has no meaning without light. Beauty cannot exist without ugliness present for comparison. While these seem to easily appeal to the logically minded, the idea that movement is defined by stillness causes some to pause.

Tags: duality, Movement, stillness

Smiling

April 6, 2010 · Posted in Health · Comment

Rating: +5 (from 5 votes)

Here’s a little exercise I use sometimes to give myself a mood lift. It’s especially useful in heavy traffic. Think of something that makes you smile. Not something that is funny and makes you laugh, but something that made you happy. Perhaps it’s a childhood memory. Perhaps it’s remembering a great moment with a pet. Or maybe it’s the first time you saw the love of your life. However you choose, find that special, genuine smile of happiness. Once you have it, hold on to it. If it was a big smile, let go of some of it until you have just a slight grin. Keep this expression on your face willfully, even after the moment of remembering has passed.