Ten Relaxation Techniques

A few good relaxation techniques can save your life, because stress is more than just unpleasant. It's also dangerous to your health. Disciplined practices such as meditation can help relieve that stress, but what if you don't have the time or motivation? Maybe you need to try a few of these simple ways to relax.

1. Hug someone. Giving a hug means getting one. As long as it's from somebody you don't mind hugging you, this really can be relaxing.

2. Interrupt routines. Go talk to that guy sleeping on the bench, or eat lunch on the roof. Just doing anything that breaks you out of your habitual patterns can relieve stress.

3. Have a hot shower. It relaxes your muscles, and any break from more stressful activities can help too. Some find that an alternating hot and cold shower is even more relaxing.

4. Try watching your mind. Spot the stressors lurking just below the surface (hunger, worry, a phone call you need to make), and you can resolve them and feel more relaxed. If you practice this mindfulness exercise, it may become one of your favorite relaxation techniques.

5. Try laughing. Your own experience shows that this helps you relax, right? Go find a guy that knows all the best jokes, or find something funny in front of you.

6. Use relaxing music. Keep your favorite relaxation CD at the office, in the car, or wherever you'll need it most.

7. Leave the room for a while. This can really help if the things in the room or related to it are triggering your stressful thoughts. Why not get out for a little while?

8. Breath deeply. Try five deep breaths through your nose. Close your eyes and pay attention only to your breathing while doing this. It's like a mini-meditation, and perhaps the most effective of the quick relaxation techniques.

9. Drink some chamomile tea. Chamomile tea seems to have a calming effect on the nerves. Any hot tea without caffeine may be relaxing.

10. Walk a while. If you have at least ten minutes to spare, walking is one of the best relaxation techniques. While you're at it, find a pretty place to walk.

Naturally, it is ideal if you can change yourself, so you're naturally more relaxed all of the time. Perhaps the thought of the work involved in this just stresses you more. In that case you might have to take it slow, so why not start with one or two of the simple relaxation techniques above?

Meditate to Unlock Your Hidden Potential – Part 2

You can be the creator of your own manifest destiny. Through daily meditation practice and focus on changing your life for the better. In fact, you have the ability to redefine yourself in any direction you desire. The power that you can cultivate is limited only by your own imagination.

As I have mentioned earlier, this will change the lives of people who you come into frequent contact with. Therefore, you must always be kind, trustworthy, and considerate to others. You should make a change in that direction at this very moment.

Why the sudden need for character improvement? It goes hand-in-hand with using power and influence wisely. Remember Lord Acton’s saying: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The power of your mind has the ability to alter reality. Therefore, this is a power that must be controlled.
How is this possible? Here is an example: If you had two identical twin boys, who haven’t eaten for two days, and you put an apple in front of them; what would they do?

Most likely, they would fight over it, and the winner would eat, most or, all of it. You and I know they should divide it equally, but each of them has really felt starvation, and that is a reality you and I do not feel at the moment. So we are not talking about imagination, but three legitimate points of view, that each becomes our own reality.

Meditation will allow your mind to see multiple points of view, without judgment. If you can see only one point of view, you haven’t meditated long enough. The best leaders, negotiators, and diplomats, know that you have to understand the opposing viewpoint, to move forward, on any issue. There is always justification, on both sides, in any conflict, but true compromise is meeting the opposition in a different reality, than you both started from.

If you had the ability to travel in the space shuttle, your view of earth, from within your space vehicle, would be much different from the person living in poverty, within a refugee camp. You could not see, or feel, that person’s pain, and each of you would have a vivid picture of life on earth.

You can meditate from a mountain top, but once you have seen the full picture, you have an obligation to help mankind, with acts of kindness. Once you have discovered how easy it is to help others, you are no longer struggling with; “who is right and who is wrong.”
Your new reality becomes, “how can I help?”