La Manzana / La Revista de Sotogrande
Control your stress levels After the summer months and a relaxing holiday, we return to the routine of work, school, domestic chores, meetings, commitments etc. If we are not careful, all of these tasks can end up saturating our nervous system and altering our healthy balance.
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e) elow we propose a series of guidelines so that you can learn to properly manage your stress levels.
a) Be aware of the level of psychological activity or tension that you endure every day. The main factor in controlling a high level of stress is to be aware of it and to take measures to alleviate it. Stop and think whether you are really able to assimilate your daily activity load or if in fact it is too much for you to cope with. Pay attention to certain indicators such as: • Deficient sleep, both in terms of the number of hours and the
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quality of sleep. Sleeping poorly on a continual basis tends to be one of the first signs that something is not right. • A daily feeling of tiredness or sleepiness. • Irritability. • Apathy, boredom, a lack of motivation in everyday tasks. • Appearance of psychological problems: the most common are anxiety or depression. Remain active. Do regular physical activity. This is one of the best ways to release tension, what we call a ‘cathartic’ activity, a release of energy used to help
our regulation of the nervous system. It also aids rest, which is one of the main factors in controlling stress. Physical activity favours the production of endorphins, which improve our general feeling of wellbeing. Use contrasts of hold and cold. Hot baths with cold showers, saunas, Turkish baths, contrast showers or generally using spas. It has been shown that these have a calming effect on our central nervous system (as long as there are no medical reasons for avoiding them). Use relaxation techniques to help control excessive tension. Methods such as Schultz’s autogenous technique or Jacobson’s progressive technique are very easy to do and have proven relaxing effects. They are based on controlling the breathing. Use various breathing techniques such as abdominal breathing, which is very common in disciplines such as yoga and Pilates. Deficient respiratory dynamics can be one of the factors that cause stress. According to some physiotherapists and GPR specialists, most of us are in a state of ‘respiratory blockage’, or in other words our inspiration muscles are in a continual state of hypertonicity, in particular the ‘accessory muscles’, such as those of the upper thorax, neck, shoulder blade… A permanent contraction of these muscles hinders pulmonary ventilation and makes it more difficult to oxygenate our body.■
RSG45