Body focused approaches to stress management
Life can be stressful. You may feel stress about performance at school, traumatic events (such as a pandemic, a natural disaster, or an act of violence), or life changes. Everyone feels stress from time to time.
Firstly, let's clarify the meanings of stress and anxiety.
What is stress? Stress is the physical or mental response to an external cause, such as having a lot of homework or dealing with an illness. A stressor can be a one-time or short-term occurrence, or it can happen repeatedly over a long period.
What is anxiety? Anxiety is your body's reaction to stress and can occur even if there is no immediate threat.
If anxiety doesn’t go away and begins to interfere with your life, it can affect your health. You might experience problems with sleeping, or issues with your immune, digestive, cardiovascular, and reproductive systems. You may also be at a higher risk of developing mental health conditions such as anxiety disorders or depression.
To prevent issues with anxiety over time, it can be important to have well established stress- management strategies. So, what is the best way to manage stress... mind or body approaches, or perhaps a combination of both?
Body-focused relaxation techniques may be helpful in managing a variety of stress-related health conditions, including anxiety associated with ongoing health problems. Relaxation training is probably the most used non-pharmacological, both stand-alone and psychotherapy-combined approach for the treatment of many medical and psychological diseases. Among the wide range of non-conventional and sometimes doubtful treatments, relaxation-based methods such as meditation, progressive muscular relaxation, and yoga have received the greatest scientific attention and validation.
Body focused approaches to stress management:
Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) - Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is a deep relaxation technique that has been effectively used to control stress and anxiety, relieve insomnia, and reduce symptoms of certain types of chronic pain. Progressive muscle relaxation is based upon the simple practice of tensing, or tightening, one muscle group at a time followed by a relaxation phase with release of the tension.
Meditation - Meditation has been around for thousands of years. Early meditation was meant to help deepen understanding of the sacred and mystical forces of life. These days, meditation is most often used to relax and lower stress. Meditation is a type of mind-body complementary medicine. Meditation can help you relax deeply and calm your mind. During meditation, you focus on one thing. You get rid of the stream of thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process can lead to better physical and emotional well-being.
Yoga - When you lift weights, your muscles get stronger and bigger. When you do yoga, your brain cells develop new connections, and changes occur in brain structure as well as function, resulting in improved cognitive skills such as learning and memory. Yoga strengthens parts of the brain that play a key role in memory, attention, awareness, thought, and language. Think of it as weightlifting for the brain. Studies using MRI scans and other brain imaging technology have shown that people who regularly did yoga had a thicker cerebral cortex (the area of the brain responsible for information processing) and hippocampus (the area of the brain involved in learning and memory) compared with nonpractitioners. These areas of the brain typically shrink as you age, but the older yoga practitioners showed less shrinkage than those who did no yoga. This suggests that yoga may counteract age-related declines in memory and other cognitive skills.
Mind focused approaches to stress management:
A number of mind-based treatment approaches have been found to effectively reduce stress. These include cognitive behavioural stress management, stress inoculation training, and mindfulness-based stress reduction.
Cognitive behavioral stress management (CBSM)- CBSM includes a range of techniques such as communication skills, problem-solving, time management and strategies to address unhelpful thinking that can contribute to stress. During CBSM therapy, a client learns recovery skills that are useful throughout their lifetime. Techniques and skills that are acquired during CBSM therapy help facilitate adherence to medication protocols and have been shown to decrease isolation and depressive symptoms while improving immune function. Most importantly, CBSM improves quality of life for clients.
Stress inoculation training (SIT) - SIT teaches people specific skills to handle stress more effectively. SIT educates the person about stress and how unhelpful coping strategies, or self-talk can contribute to stress. The person is also taught to tell the difference between what can be changed and what is beyond their control, so they can direct their energies to take more constructive action. The person then learns a range of coping skills (e.g., relaxation, problem solving, and communication skills) designed to reduce anxiety and increase confidence. These coping skills are then practiced while rehearsing stressful situations. Mindfulness-based stress reduction approaches - these have been found to effectively reduce stress by drawing the person’s focus to the immediate moment, free from the distraction of real and imagined worries. Mindfulness allows you to observe your thoughts and emotions without judgement. By doing so, you become less entangled in the stories and narratives that often contribute to stress.
Mindfulness also helps you develop greater emotional awareness and regulation. Instead of reacting impulsively to stressors, you can respond thoughtfully and skillfully. Mindfulness has been shown to lower cortisol levels, reduce inflammation, and promote relaxation responses in the body, all of which counteract the physical effects of stress. Regular mindfulness practice enhances your ability to bounce back from adversity. You become more adaptable and less overwhelmed by life's challenges.
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