Reduce Your Stress with Massage Chair Treatments
December 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It seems that in these modern times that stress is just part of the landscape. We seem to be under more pressure whether at home or a work. The major shift of stress seems to be from physical stress to mental stress. Our fore fathers were in much more under stress from physical dangers. We on the other hand, seem to be under much more mental stress. We react to both mental or physical stress in much the same way: the fight or flight reaction. Our source of stress has certainly changed, but not our reaction to it.
This reaction to stress causes the body to kick itself into high gear. Our heart rate is increased, the major organs shut down all but the most basic functions and adrenaline is pumped out to boost our energy. There is a major redirection of chemical reactions in the body to get it immediately ready for action. However, with many of the stresses we encounter there is no physical release to all this redirection of energy. This can be problematic since many toxin are the by product of these chemical reactions and these stay in the body.
Stress comes from so many different situations, that we are not able to eliminate its causes. Rather we need effective stress management techniques. Professional athletes are able to redirect the build up of stress into ways to enhance their performance. This is a very positive way to deal with the build up of stress. The only downside for most of us, is where professional athletes have a physical release of the stress from their bodies with physical exertion, but we may not.
Effective stress management requires a physical outlet to release the chemicals that the body is releasing when under stress. Physical exertion is one of the best methods, since that is what the body is primed to do. Another excellent method to release stress is massage therapy. There are many benefits with massage therapy. It is great to loosen up tight muscles and relieve tension. It can relax the organs in the body activated by the stress reaction. It will release toxins that are in our muscles and help to flush them out of our system. And best of all it helps us relax our mind and bring harmony back to the body.
Massage chair recliners have many effective massage therapies with proven beneficial effects. Massage chairs come equipped with Shiatsu massage, Swedish massage, Deep Tissue and many others. Each of these massage treatments target specific areas and have different benefits. In general, they all help induce relaxation and help to ease aches and pains. Massage helps to remove toxins from the body and enhances circulation of the blood and lymph. Both the blood and lymph clean the body of toxins and other potentially harmful substances.
Massage cannot eliminate the causes of stress. Stress comes in many forms and individuals all respond differently to them. However, massage therapy can be an essential tool in stress management. Especially massage chairs which offer unprecedented convenience and availability. These massage chairs offer full body massage capability. They can massage from head to toe. Many advanced massage chairs have stretching capabilities to elongate and relax the lower body. They also may have built in music players which help take your mind off the mental stresses impacting you.
Imagine the convenience of having your own massage chair recliner at home. You start to come under stress situations. You can just sit down and let the massage chair work you over. Your body starts to feel better and your mind starts to clear. You now are in a better frame of mind to come up with better ways to overcome the problems at hand. You now have a powerful stress management tool, your massage chair recliner at your disposal.
How to manage stress at work
November 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment
In order to understand stress and how to manage stress, you need to know how people respond. Specifically, people need to know how to overcome negative self talk. To make this practical, I will describe how Jane operates in the workplace.
Why is it that Jane, 42 years of age, suddenly has difficulty going out with her husband? When she goes to parties she hides away from everyone. This behaviour seems to stem from her workplace where she feels everyone is critical of her. She was stressed at work. She feels she doesn’t have her colleagues’ respect. She believes that her boss is overly critical.
Jane is suffering extreme work stress. She has reached the point in her work life where everything is weighing her down. Her physical responses include feeling being physically sick, and even nauseous. She says that she is depressed, reports that she is afraid of making mistakes at work and feels that she cannot cope with work demands.
There is no doubt that she is much less productive and accurate with her work. In sum, HER SYSTEM IS OVER-LOADED with worry, concern, anxiety, fears, and she has lost most of her self-confidence. Does this sound familiar to you? Can you put yourself is Jane’s place? Can you begin to understand how stressed she is? Do you feel that life’s events have over-run you and you can’t cope? Do you feel constantly under threat, tired and unresponsive? Are your friends and/or your partner asking you what is wrong with you? Are you dissatisfied with your life? Do you feel you can’t cope the way you used to? Is your work constantly suffering from your emotional state?
If the answer is YES!!! - you are suffering extreme stress. And this is a very common phenomenon in today’s high paced society. Some people think that stress is an acceptable bi-product of our busy lifestyle. Research on cardiac disease after the 9/11 attacks showed a significant increase in cardiac ailments. These included high blood pressure, strokes, and heart problems. People’s physical states were impacted by their emotional states. And when people are not well emotionally they have difficulty being highly productive at work.
What are these workplace stressors? That is, what are the events that elevate stress? They include a long list of things.
Some bosses expect far too much of their employees. Transfers, redundancy, poor communication will contribute to workplace stress. In some places interpersonal difficulties with colleagues at work and even partners at home can cause emotional overload.
How do we cope with all these stresses in the workplace? This depends on you. Job changing is one solution but not a good one. A devious strategy for a bad boss is to list the boss’ name with a headhunting agency in the hope that your boss will get a job elsewhere. Poor role specification in my view is a major problem for workplace stress. If you and your boss have different views of your job, stress and conflict will emerge. The first step in dealing with stress is to outline ways of controlling the situation.
But what does this mean? Here’s the first message - YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK. You are your own pilot navigating your way through your own life. YOU are responsible for yourself. YOU can make the changes in your life if you want. If you are in a stressful situation, you CAN deal with the stress and the situation. The first principle is to know yourself and the nature of your self-talk. Most of how we feel is determined by what we think. We spend a very large amount of our day filling our head with self-talk - little conversations we have with ourselves.
I know this sounds simple but it is true. We constantly run ourselves down and criticize ourselves. We have probably 10 times more negative and dysfunctional ’self-thoughts’ than we have positive self-thoughts. More than anything I can think of, this tendency to be continually self-critical causes the greatest tension. And guess what, if we have friends, family, loved ones who also criticize us unrelentingly, we are really in trouble. The challenge is simple - if we want to improve our lives we have to change our thinking.
Stress Triggers and Stress Relief
November 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment
For some people, acrophobia or fear of heights is a significant stress trigger. While my wife is blissfully relaxed in cable cars and driving on high mountains, I become a quivering mess. My first awareness of this was driving up to a British hill station in north-eastern India. The 6000 feet climb caused me huge stress and I had to figure how high and I could relieve the stress
Different experiences trigger different levels of stress for people. Some people get a rush out of extreme sports while others are terrified at the thought of doing such dangerous things. For me, it is heights like to think of a way of reducing the stress. My best stress relief strategy is to make sure that I don’t engage in these experiences.
What makes you stressed and worried? Spiders, snakes, people, tests, and public speaking are very common stressors. Look at what I’m going to say and work out which ones are problems for you.
In the workplace we have these triggers: organizational changes, unfair or excessive workloads, too much unpaid overtime, stressful demands and expectations, duties that do not match individual’s job specification, work that is boring and is not motivating, no (or limited) autonomy over the work situation, job insecurity and threatened redundancy, inadequate training for the demands of the position, inadequate, inappropriate or excessive supervision, a work environment that does not meet occupational health and safety standards, inadequate resources to do the job. Others include inappropriate social culture in the workplace, for example, racist, harassing, discriminatory, poor relationships with colleagues or bosses, and dramatic events in the workplace, for example, death, severe injury, hold-ups. What a list. It is a wonder that so many of us enjoy our workplaces a well as we do.
People have their own list of personal fears. Having grown up on a farm, I’m not particularly scared of snakes but many of my friends are terrified. A dinner party where you are meant to look good and sound smart can be quite stressful. Some people worry about their body shape because they are too fat.
As most of us have an extended family, and we assume responsibility for our family, we can worry about things like education, unwanted pregnancies, and financial difficulties. Worse, parents worry about their children becoming drug dependent. Relationship problems one of the major causes of people seek therapy. There are plenty of family triggers for stress.
What we have to do is to work out how to deal with these stressors in order to reduce or relive the stress and tension. I propose a model I call BE CALM. The acronym has two purposes: to remind you to be calm in the face of a stressful event or a difficult and person; and the six letters represent logical strategies for dealing with complex situations. The model is B for Build, E for Examine, C for confront, A for Accept, L for Let go (forgive, forget) and M for Move on with your life. I don’t have space to explain this model but when one works through this carefully over any stressful event, a plan of action can be mapped out that will mean that we can manage and relieve stress effectively.