Feeling a little…tense? From the top of your head down to the soles of your feet, here are varied quick ways to soothe stress.
Head massage: A nice Head Massage with the tips of your fingers is a surefire
way to release some stress and easy out the migraines. It eases muscle tension, improves circulation and reduces stress almost immediately.
Shower: Whether cold or hot, a shower is a sure-shot way of feeling relaxed and invigorated. Use essential oils and a good shower gel to boot.
Rotate your eyes: Did you know that most of the tension we store our bodies is through tense eyes and clenched jaws. Rotate your eyes or practice consciously relaxing your eye-balls and see the stress melt-away.
Use an eye-pack: Take a cue from the cucumber packs you see in salon posters. Time to give it a shot. Use ice-gel packs or cucumbers: both are sure to get your eyes feeling cool and refreshed.
Smell a flower: Take a flower from the garden(preferably a fragrant variety), and just pause, breathe and literally “smell the roses.”
Eat a fruit: Not only rich in fibre, minerals and vitamins, fruits are a sure shot way to shed the stress with the freshness of flavour, fibre and fragrance in every bite. Enjoy all three and you are sure to come out feeling refreshed.
Drink lemon and basil-infused water: A refreshing alternative to having water is to have one infused with lemon and other infusions to give an invigorating experience to a routine task. Truly refreshing.
Try humming: Humming, as suggested in the introduction, not only is a comforting and nurturing form of sound expression and therapy, but it also produces Nitric Oxide, dilating your blood vessels, great for circulation and activating the parasympathetic nervous system.
Alternate nostril breathing: Also known as Anulom-Vilom, this form of Pranayama is known to quickly alleviate stress and balance the body and the two hemispheres of the brain.
Stretch the neck and shoulders: Joining the brain to the rest of our body is the neck which again tends to store a lot of stress and tension. Gently rotating in clockwise and anti-clockwise directions, up and down, left and right and even massaging it can be great for stress relief.
Hang from a rod (Dead Hang): Find something that can take your weight and you can grip. Do a dead hang and see yourself lifted from stress and into better circulation, energy and mental clarity.
Have a piece of Chocolate/Jaggery/Honey: To be done in moderation, take a small piece of chocolate and place it over your tongue, romancing it’s consumption. Let it melt all over your tongue in a burst of flavour and experience, pampering your senses. Feel the experience with every cell of your being elevating the piece of a chocolate as a means(chewing and swallowing) to an end, a joy and celebration in itself.
Clench your fists and Release: A great way to instantaneously eradicate stress is to clench your fists, as tight as you possibly can, feeling all the stress in your hands for a good few seconds, holding your breath and then RELEASE, breathing out all the stress you had held in your palms.
Skip or do jumping jacks: Yes you read that right. Even two minutes of intensive skipping can get your heart rate flowing, blood pumping and lungs breathing to a greater capacity. It is an efficacious way to obliterate the stress you are feeling.
Substitute skipping with Jumping Jacks if you are more comfortable with that.
Deep breathing: Simple enough to be missed, one of the best hacks of reducing stress in just a couple of minutes is: to take deep breaths. Deep breathing can be a state intercept into the emotional cascade that follows when you are stressed and can allow you to redirect your emotional and mental state after the deep breathing.
Ujjayi Pranayama: Normally practiced as part of the Sudarshan Kriya, the Ujjayi form of Pranayama is a potent tool to calm your mind and reinvigorate your sense organs. Literally translated to “Victor’s breath” this aims to transform your mental and emotional state by directly impacting your breathing. Give it a shot to feel assured, upbeat and confident.
Chanting: Amongst other things, chanting a energetically charged mantra such Om, So Hum, Om Mani Padme Hum and the Gayatri Mantra has the power to transform your emotional state and make you feel relaxed, calm and centred.
Affirmations: Affirmations, which are suitably written statements to empower and transform oneself have the power to change and relax our emotional state to one which is amenable and receptive. Whether written or heard on oral, affirmations are a powerful tool to orient ourselves mentally and emotionally into more helpful states.
Playing with a pet or gardening: Whether it is playing with our furry friends or tending to a growing sapling, both have the power to nurture our nature in helpful and powerful ways. Both of the above activities release helpful neurotransmitters which help us intercept the state of stress.
Walking barefeet on grass: Since eons this has been a tested method of discharging negative ions from the body and grounding oneself. Not only is it helpful in relaxing oneself, it is also a very pleasurable activity, especially if done early morning when there is due precipitated on the grass.
Hot water feet soak: Even if you don’t have time for a full fledged bath ,a hot water feet soak has the power to soak away your stress in a matter of minutes especially if done with the right bathing salts.
Accupressure: Whether a novice or beginner one can use the tips of one’s fingers to stimulate pressure points on the soles of the feet, promoting healing, circulation and impacting the various organ systems of the feet.
Hope you find these 2 minute hacks to “DE-STRESSING” useful. Have a relaxed, healthy and STRESS-FREE 206!
