Feeling Stressed? You are not alone! A study in the United States found that over 55% of adults experience stress during the day. That is more than 50% of the population. That is very scary. So the question is how to reduce stress.
Does this sound familiar? You drag yourself to work in the morning. After work, you carry the stress load from work to home—next morning repeat. You leave the house, taking the stress from home to work. And so it goes on. It is a vicious circle, and worst of all, you are not fully effective at either your work or at home.
First of all, what is stress?
Stress is when the demand is higher than your capacity or energy; when you think you have too much to do with too little time and not enough stamina to meet the demand.
So you want to figure out a way to:
- Increase your energy
- Know how to protect it
Do you know what is eating up all your energy?
Your emotions!
When emotions such as worry, anger, regret, guilt, blame, fear, and anxiety come up to the surface, it robs you of all your precious energy (prana, chi, or life force, whatever you want to call it).
The sad thing is that most of us were never taught how to handle these emotions.
And it such a waste of our precious energy how much of our time we spend being angry, feeling sad, guilty, regretting old crap we did decades ago.
Because if you carefully pay attention to these emotions such as anger, regret, guilt, and blame. It is ALWAYS about something that happened in the past. And the truth, my friend, is you cannot change the past. The past is done and over with; it is a done deal; it is something you will never be able to change. So get over it.
Same thing with fear, anxiety, and worrying; how much of your time you spend worrying. Worrying about what?? Worrying, having doubts, and fears are ALWAYS about the future. It always has to do with something that has not happened yet. Can I do this? Should I do this? What if? Blah blah blah. What a waste of your precious life.
Wake up and say NO MORE to this!! And the thing here is you need to find a way to manage these emotions; you have to learn how to handle your feelings.
How to reduce stress
By living in the present moment! I know this sounds simple and easy, yet it’s not that easy at all. There is such power in this present moment.
First of all, it is the only moment there is anyway. When we are fully present in the moment, entirely, utterly, here in the now, the amount of joy, love, enthusiasm, peace, calmness, effectiveness, clarity, productivity, efficiency is beyond words.
The Power of your breath
The secret to managing stress, handling emotions, and living in the present moment is all in the power of your breath.
Your breath is mighty powerful; it is linked to your emotions, mind, and body.
When we are happy, we breathe a certain way; when we are stressed, the pattern of our breath is very different; when we are angry, our breath is very rapid, tense, and heavy, and when we are relaxed and peaceful, we can barely notice our breath going in and out.
There is such power in the breath, and by maneuvering the rhythm of your breath, you can alter your emotions, and by molding your feelings, you can affect your entire endocrine system.
By being present, paying attention, and attending to your breath with a little bit of meditation, you can create a whole lot of miracles; your entire system gets rejuvenated.
Breathing techniques
At the Art of living, I have learned a breathing exercise combined with meditation (SKY) that is the Bomb, and through consistent practice, I have learned;
- how to manage my mind
- how to manage my emotions
- how to reduce stress, and
- how to stay centered
As a result of this, my health has improved, my sleep is much better, I have clarity of focus, my immune system is much more robust, and my interpersonal relationships has skyrocketed, and this is to name a few.
You see, we communicate through our vibrations. When our vibration is all stressed up and all over the place, we experience stress, and we are not very pleasant to be around either. People walk away from us.
But when we cleanse our vibration through breathing exercises, our vibration becomes very light and positive, and we create positivity all around us.
And the beauty is you won’t need to change your entire lifestyle. All you have to do is add some of these exercises to your everyday life, and these kickass yet straightforward exercises will enable you to live a more stress-free life with no tension.
By adding these kickass breathing exercises to your everyday routine, you will have a lot more energy; you will sharpen your intuition and spike up your creativity.
Millions of people around the world are doing it. The Art of Living Foundation has centers in more than 156 countries. For more information, you can visit https://www.artofliving.org/
Do the course have your own experience and see what happens!
Conclusion
The 1 simple technique on how to reduce stress:
- The power of your breath