Friday 26 August 2016

Do you feel stressed?

Source background
In "5 Natural Ways to Alleviate Anxiety", Euan suggests that when anxiety strikes, there are five recommended methods that not only bring you back from stress but also improve your well-being which are healthy diets, natural supplements such as B-vitamins, melatonin and ginseng, essential oil blends, focusing on breath and self-compassion (2016).
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My Yes/No question is:
Do you feel stressed?

My answer is:
Yes, quite often 

Tension is something that people at all ages usually face. Since we live in the capital city, seeing city dwellers, including me crammed in the public transportation, such as sky train, underground and bus, and worrying whether we will go to work on time or not causes me an anxiety. The situation might be worse if we all commute by private cars and have to get stuck on the road at least two hours a day. If we go to work late, this will adversely affect our job's stability, promotion and bonus at the end of the year. For the new graduates, high competition for job search is the main reason to make them stressed.

Therefore, stress management skill is of importance for everyone to apply to ourselves in order to live happily in the world's today. What Euan recommends in the article is interesting and I do implement a couple of her recommendation. They works quite well.

What do you do when you are getting stressed? I always have a concentrated Lavender oil bottle in my bedroom. Its fragrance helps a lot to ease emotional stress. Another one that I used to try is participating in a meditation camp. Last month, I went to the temple located in Chaiyaphum, the province in the North East of Thailand. During a 7-day camp, I did nothing but focusing on mind and body. It is called "Awareness". No internet connection there and mobile phone is not allowed to use. The participants rarely talked to each other. I didn't even know the name of the person sitting next to me. It's quite hard to focus on one thing in the first three days because it's not close to my rushing lifestyle. But when I really focus on myself without any distractions, I know immediately how I feel and how to cope with all emotion that pop up, including tension. I see the problems and know how to solve them.

Stress is an annoying emotion that I want it to be gone for good. However, we know that it is impossible so we have to try to live with it. I have my way to handle it, what about you? Do you have any interesting suggestion to ease tension?

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Reference
Euan, M. (2016, August 23). 5 Natural Ways to Alleviate Anxiety. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/monet-euan/5-natural-ways-to-allevia_b_11657450.html?section=us_healthy-living 


10 comments:

  1. It's not easy to cope with tension however sometimes I listen to meditation music to relief and relax my mind. I closed my eyes while take a deep breath and try to forget about things.
    Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PIBMLvcAzc

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    Replies
    1. Yes, this is another good way to relieve tension. I like to listen to these songs when I do my homework and conduct the research. I found that the meditation songs help me focus more on works I am doing and ignore the external voice that usually distracts me.

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    2. That's interesting. I never listen to music when I'm working. It distracts me. If I like the music, I listen to it, and if I don't, it's just an annoyance. I had assumed that music was in fact bad for concentration, but I was wrong.

      My initial to what Pun wrote was to disagree, but then I realised I had never checked any solid evidence, and apparently the evidence is that what Namwan and Pun suggest is true: music really can help you to focus when you are working, including studying.
      A couple of sources I just read quickly are:
      "Music and Learning: Integrating Music in the Classroom," 1995
      and "Does music really help you concentrate?", (2016)

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. I really hate when I got a lot of things to do. Yes, it's annoy. However, maybe sometimes, it is maybe my fault. I think time management is very important to manage the stress. If we have a solid plan and follow it, maybe we will have a easier life. But, sometimes there are factors that we can control such as 2 days ago my house got power-cut.

    “Remember then: there is only one time that is important -- and that is now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. ” - Leo Tolstoy.

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  4. I often feel stress when I have to do many things in time limited. For me, listen to music and eating dessert could me feel better because those help me to relieve stress. Moreover, exercise would relieve my stress too. I usually running after study or work because I want to lose my weight and be healthy.

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  5. Euan suggested five elements to alleviate anxiety. If you closely look at them, those first four items are external whereas the last one is concerning the internal-watching breaths and self-compassion. It's no doubts that certain kinds of food and vitamins are helpful calming down the people. But the most effective one is the last one. As when we are able see to our train of thoughts and know the state of our mind clearly, the formation of unwholesome thoughts could be slowed down, stopped or even stopped which is the way that our worry or anxiety are removed away.

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  6. Although I'm sure more sleep, as another blog post suggests, would be far more effective, my usual solution to stress is to watch NetFlix and eat. Eating is a good thing to do, but I sometimes overdo it, and the more stressed I am, the richer the food I tend to enjoy. Mmmm ... rich food!

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  7. You are a very good person and a Buddhist Pun. I believe and agree with your idea but meditation is very hard to implement for me because I can't sit for a long time without movement or doing anything. Although it makes me don't think anything in my head and my mind, I'm very tired, especially my legs. There are many solutions to reduce stress. For me, when I was stress I went to sleep as my relaxation. Another thing I always do is to eat chocolate because it can make me feel happy and get more energy to face problems. As a result, I eat chocolate too much and now I'm going to be fat so I need to eat it in moderation or reduce to eat it.

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    Replies
    1. I like chocolate, too, rich, dark chocolate with little or no added sugar. Just what I need now before I go to bed. Sleep is probably healthier for me, especially with the very early start I have to make tomorrow with the two-day class that has messed up our classes, but my usual habit is to go to bed and relax with a silly TV series, and snack.

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