Stress Management and Holistic Well-Being Techniques

Article by Ranjini Rao

What is Stress?

Psychologists define it as a feeling of strain and pressure.

But I would define it as the worst factor that causes lagging in our everyday performance and many health issues as well. Stress caused by many factors daily, studies, high expectations, or even something as simple as not having eaten for a long time.

Some common causes of stress are as follows:

At work:
• Having no job security
• Being unhappy in your job
• Expectations from manager or colleagues
• Peer pressure
• Having a lack of work-life balance
• Facing discrimination or harassment at your workplace

General:
• The death of a loved one
• Relocation to a new place/city
• Chronic illness or injury
• Emotional problems
• Loss of a job
• Multi-tasking and multiple deadlines to meet
• Over thinking and too much analysis

The causes listed above are only a few causes of stress. It is a highly relative concept and hence differs from person to person. What one finds stressful might not be as stressful for another. But however stress might be perceived, there are common ways of combatting stress in your life. This is the main focus area of this article.

Stress management techniques vary from something as simple as changing your breathing pattern to practicing Holistic well-being techniques for relieving stress from your body.

Some techniques that may give you relief are as follows:

1. Diaphragmatic Breathing
   When you’re stressed, your chest tightens and your breathing becomes shallow and rapid. We are meant to do belly breathing, which is breathing as our tummies rise and fall repeatedly. This is known as diaphragmatic breathing. Shallow and rapid breathing increases our heart rate and induces the flight or fight response in us. This is what causes stress mainly.
2. Meditation/Yoga
   This is one of the most common ways of fighting stress. Meditation helps you quiet your mind and master negative thought patterns which are often the causes of stress. Yoga relaxes your muscles and slows down your breathing and heart rate.
3. Aromatherapy
   Aromatherapy is a way of relieving stress by use of the scent of few essential oils. Besides stress relieving, lavender has anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, and mood stabilizing properties.
4. Reiki
   Reiki is an ancient Japanese technique of self-healing system. ‘Rei’ in Japanese is “Universal” and ’Ki’ is Energy. Channeling ‘Reiki’ or any other self-healing practice is the ability of one person to heal another by the laying on of hands or through thought transference has been recognized and practiced to cultures throughout the world. There are two types of healing involved here – Faith and Spiritual healing. In faith-based healing, the patient completely puts trust and faith in the healer and allows the healers own healing energy to flow through his/her body, second, spiritual healing where the healer acts as a medium, transmitting the innate energy of the universe – the life-force that is perceived and named in a variety of ways across different cultures and religions – to the patient. Most of the times the symptoms of the disease particularly true for stress-related disorders will be helped by the feeling that one is cared and cherished.
5. Crystal energy healing
   A crystal is basically a package of energy and minerals in an orderly three-dimensional lattice. To get the most out of crystals, you need to find those that are truly yours. Each person has a unique energy frequency and the secret to effective crystal working is to find the crystals that respond to you.

For more effective methods and techniques to deal with stress, we recommend you the 16 Stress Management Activities and Worksheets to Help Clients Beat Stress article of our partners from PositivePsychology.com.

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Ranjini Rao is an independent wellness counselor, who imparts Reiki knowledge and other self-empowerment techniques to individuals looking for serving their life’s purpose and to unlock the potential of their mind. She coaches on mindfulness practices through NLP, meditation, and mandala art painting. Prior to this, she was serving as a Marketing strategy Consultant @ IBM Interactive Experience & Mobile, Global Delivery Services. She has served in several roles within IBM India over 15 years and has over 20+ years of Industry experience and her specialization is Digital & Social Media Marketing Strategy coaching and consulting. Her personal experiences around Reiki have been life-changing and transformational in nature.
She has been a pious person and spiritually inclined soul since a young age. She was an intuitive channel since 1995 even before she realized it. She has been associated with various philanthropy community activities and developed her interests in holistic healing since 2008. She is a Usui and Karuna® Reiki Certified Master, Certified Holistic Well-being Counsellor, TA101 Certified by ITAA, Angel therapy practitioner, Certified NLP practitioner, self-taught artist, and Silva Method Practitioner.

You can reach her at www.srishtivataarts.blogspot.com and on Twitter @iampositive2k, Facebook page Srishti Vataa Healing & Art Studio and by email to srishtivataarts@gmail.com.