Category: Mental Health

relaxation technique you need to try

5-Minute Relaxation Technique You Need to Try

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Do you ever feel tense during the day or have trouble sleeping at night? If so, you are not alone. For many, relaxation may consist of scrolling endlessly on your phone through social media. But this does little to reduce the damaging health effects of chronic stress and can actually harm the quality of your sleep. On the other hand, relaxation exercises are designed to help your body let go of tension, clear your mind, and cause you to fall asleep faster while experiencing deeper and better quality sleep. This article will provide an overview of one of the most effective relaxation techniques: Progressive Muscle Relaxation.

Don’t really feel like reading? Then simply sit back and play this 10-minute video, in which Dr. Chi gives a brief overview of the physiologic stress response before guiding you through a soothing session of relaxation.

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managing stress

Effects of Stress on Your Body & Health: What to Know

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Do you often feel stressed out? Do you have things in your life that frequently cause you stress? Has the COVID-19 pandemic caused you to just feel burned out? If you do, you are truly not alone. In this article, I will discuss the effects of stress on your body and your health—both the immediate effects and the long term damage—and then introduce the most fundamental aspect of stress management: identifying causes of stress and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

In separate articles, I discuss stress management techniques that have been proven to work in both lowering stress and decreasing the harmful effects of it on your health.

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feeling depressed coping depression during covid

Feeling Depressed? Coping with Depression during COVID

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If you have been feeling increasingly down or depressed lately, you are not alone. Surveys worldwide have shown that the vast majority of people feel that the coronavirus pandemic has had a significant negative effect on their mental health and wellbeing—and it’s no surprise why. The stress of social isolation compounded with the daily onslaught of negative news—along with existing worries about health, work, and family life—is more than enough to trigger depression for the first time or exacerbate symptoms in those who have already been diagnosed.

No matter where you are in your journey, this article will provide some practical strategies that will help you counteract negative thoughts and feelings of loneliness while improving your mood and helping you feel less depressed.

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Stress Management Techniques You Need to Know

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Now that I’ve discussed how harmful chronic stress is to your health…what can you do about it? The very necessary next step (after recognizing what is causing your stress) is to make the decision to take control of it. To decide to take control means that you are determined to start making positive, proactive changes in your life to effectively manage your stress—as opposed to allowing yourself to feel like a victim to it and merely trying to cope with it. This difference in mindset can make a significant difference—the difference between feeling like you’re keeping pace while staying ahead in a race as opposed to lagging behind trying to catch up. This article will go over four essential stress management techniques that you need to know—also called the “4 A’s.”

Feeling stressed out right now? Take a few seconds to do one of these quick relaxation techniques.

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