How To Relax When Stressed

How can I relax?

A key element in managing your stress is learning how to relax. You can relax in a number of different ways. You can simply switch your brain off, spend half an hour reading a magazine, being quiet with yourself. You can take up meditation. For example, people who meditate each day actually change the quality of their brain waves, and it's an excellent form. It's not one of those things where you've got to sit cross-legged. You can even do it on a train. You can teach yourself to meditate for 10 or 15 minutes. It will actually help you. The other things that you can do are making sure that, for example, you get exercise, because it is a form of relaxation. When I say exercise, I don't mean go down to the gym and kill yourself. Just walk for 15 or 20 minutes. Another thing that you can do is to learn to breathe properly. We have what we call the rescue remedy relaxation exercise. It's a bit like people who like taking Bach flower remedies. What you do is you simply take in a deep breath through your nose, and then you slowly let it out, and as you let it out, you relax your tummy and your shoulders. If you do that three or four times - and nobody notices because you've got to breathe anyway, so nobody actually notices you doing it - it will just calm you down. There's a number of ways, including going to relaxation classes.