Stress influences our life and health quite significantly. Stress can be defined as any psychological or emotional condition that leads to an overall imbalance of the system. The effect of stress can be profound. It may cause several complications ranging from simple headaches to severe heart attack.

Not all stresses are bad. When you are doing exercise you are experiencing stress, but it is temporary with a promise of health benefits if it can be performed in effective fashion. However, if you are continuing your exercise module for longer period than is actually needed, it has all the possibilities that you are welcoming some disputable stresses in your life. Hence, as it reveals, it is all in the way how you manage stress rather than how you experience it. So learning and adopting various stress management techniques in your daily life can actually make you able to manage your life with full potentiality.

Managing Stress

Typically, stress is associated with two interrelated factors. One is external and the other one is internal. External factors may include all and everything related to your physical world, the world of job, home, relation, events, diseases and others. On the other hand, internal factors determine the bodily abilities. Stress management techniques focus on alteration in the external factors contributing stress or on internal factors in terms of making them strong to deal with external ones. Now we will focus our attention on few effective stress management techniques.

Exercise

We do physical exercise because it perks up our health - not only in physical terms, but also in emotional terms. Exercise helps us to maintain a healthy balance in holistic sense. When you feel that you are physically fit and healthy, it feels good to your mind and eventually it helps to develop confidence to fight against stressful conditions.

Relaxation and Meditation

Relaxation and mediation technique are really worthy as it promotes the overall mind-body enhancement. There are a great variety of these two techniques. Some of the relaxation and meditation techniques can not be learned without any expert guidance; however, there are some that can be achieved by own effort. Here is a brief overview of some of the relaxation and meditation processes that are integral part of any standard stress management techniques.

Meditation: Since ancient ages meditation is considered as one of the best stress management techniques to acquire a total mind-body relaxation. In practice, there are more than thousands meditation techniques available, some of them can be learned by own. The meditative state is achieved when someone may have a deep focus upon the core of his own being. This is a state of absolute calmness and tranquility. A regular and structured practice can induce the same. Transcendental meditation is a particular form of meditation which has been popularized in last decades.

The primary objective of transcendental meditation is to achieve the state of transcendental awareness, the non-complex form of consciousness. Another form of meditation technique known as relaxation response is designed to inducing the opposed reaction to the stress stimuli experienced. It is effective lowering high blood pressure and other bodily stress response.

Qigong: Originally evolved as a part of ancient Chinese health care system, Qigong offers a blend of physical activities in essence with Eastern philosophy and relaxation techniques. It may include different activities ranging from standing, walking, sitting to body massage and many others. Recognized as one of the most effective stress management techniques, Qigong demands patience, time, commitment, group cohesion, and determination.

Visual Imagery: This is also known as guided imagery. It offers a calmness of mind and soul by using pleasant visualization through imagination. In this process, you will learn to regulate your breathing pattern in addition to visualize a soothing image in your mind. Controlling these two factors, you will gradually reach at the state of absolute relaxation. This method is easy to learn and virtually any one can take advantage of this technique. A regular practice can ensure a good control over stress.