100 ways to relax and De-Stress

Self-esteem is a word composed of the words self and esteem. Auto means a compositional element that enters the formation of some voices with the meaning of “own or by oneself”. Esteem, is the consideration and appreciation that is made of a person for its quality and circumstance. We can say, then, that self-esteem is the consideration and appreciation that is made of our person, by ourselves.

The level of our self-esteem is broadly related to our state of mind, the situations in which we are involved and the degree of satisfaction we have regarding our achievements and behavior. Usually when we say that we have normal self-esteem, it is rather because we have high self-esteem, and actually we feel comfortable with ourselves.

However, it is not good to get to extremes, because we tend to confuse high self-esteem with self-centeredness and narcissism, the opposite extreme is low self-esteem, this can be very dangerous, because by losing esteem for our own being, we also we lose our respect and we do not care what happens to us.

People who are frequently subjected to stress, disbelief, discouragement, humiliation and difficulties, if they do not know how to face and overcome these situations, can have serious self-esteem problems.

100 ways to relax and De-Stress

1.- Desensitization: Refers to a set of procedures used to reduce or gradually eliminate the ability of some stimuli to achieve negative emotional responses such as anxiety, fear and guilt.The basic experimental principles are counterconditioning and extinction, physical activity is used as a form of desensitization and to improve the capacity for verbal expression.

2.- Deep breathing

3.- Sauna: Steam bath, typical of Finland, currently spread across many countries and very appreciated as relaxing. It is similar to what in Venezuela we called Turkish Bath.

4.- Hydrotherapy: Use of water in the treatment of diseases. Hot water relaxes contractures. It is used in strains and muscle stretches, muscle fatigue and back pain. Sitting in hot water is effective in the treatment of hemorrhoids.

5.- Music therapy: The action of music is a therapy that acts on the nervous system and in emotional crises, increasing or decreasing glandular secretions and regulating blood pressure. It influences the mind by creating emotions.

6.- Tai-Chi-Chuan: It is a very ancient Chinese discipline, whose exercises are practiced to obtain health, meditation, energy flow and self-defense.

7.- Martial Arts: Varied methods of fighting without weapons used in the Far East and shaped by philosophical concepts especially ZEN Buddhism. Martial arts are practiced today in many parts of the world as a means of self-defense, competitive sport and physical preparation exercises. The most known forms are: Karate, Kung Fu, Jujitsu, Judo, Akido, Tai-Chi-Chuan, Taekwondo, Kendo and Sumo.

8.- Swimming: Olympic sport, indicated for the treatment of asthma. There are several styles. Among them the ornamental jumps.

9.- Sports: Baseball, football, basketball, horse riding, fencing, boxing, athletics, etc. All sports are excellent for a healthy body and a healthy mind.

10.- Feldenkrais: Become aware through movement in order to awaken in the brain, the willingness to modify and improve the organization of movement and posture.

11.- Rolfing: It is a form of corporal treatment, of the deep tissues with structural orientation. It is a combination of Hatha yoga, Alexander technique, oestopathy and homeopathy. It was called structural integration because of the way the body structure affects its function, but the public called it Rolfing and that’s how it stayed.

12.- Trager: Known as psycho-physical integration Trager. It is a method of body education with manipulations of limbs, joints and muscles. Free-form movement increases body awareness and improves agility.

13.- Reiki: It is a technique of energy transfer by laying on of hands. It is based on five principles: do not be angry; do not worry; be grateful; Work hard; be kind to others.

14.- Pilates: Pilates exercises are based on coordination, breathing and precise movements. The exercises are concentrated in the so-called Powerhouse or center of power, with this refer to the muscles of the torso: abdominals, back and buttocks.

15.- Yoga: It is one of the six classical systems of philosophy of Hinduism. It differs from the others by providing the power of the body and the magical power attributed to its advanced devotees. It argues as a doctrine that through the practice of certain disciplines the human being can achieve liberation from the limitations of the flesh, the deception of the senses and the pitfalls of thought. This way you get to authentic knowledge.

16.- Meditation: It is the attunement of the physical and mental attributes, seeking to know the relations with the Maker. Therefore, it is not to brood, nor to let the imagination fly, nor to daydream; but as our bodies are made of physical, mental and spiritual elements we tune the mental body and the physical body with its spiritual source. When meditating, the seven spiritual centers of the body are opened. The spiritual centers are: the pituitary; the pineal; the thyroid-parathyroid; the thymus; the Leydig cells; the adrenals and the gonads.

17.- Focusing the breath: Sit with your back comfortably straight and your feet resting on the floor. Calmly, focus your attention on breathing. Relax and inhale through your nose counting up to 5, at a comfortable pace. Pause, contain the inhalation counting up to 5. Exhale with the mouth slightly open counting to 10 and keep the exhalation well controlled. Repeat five complete cycles.

18.- Breathe alternating nostrils: Sit comfortably with your back straight and your shoulders relaxed. Gently cover the right nostril with the right thumb and inhale gently and deeply on the left. Gently cover the left nostril with the ring of the right hand. Hold your breath for a few seconds, then turn your thumb away, exhaling slowly and completely through the right nostril. Then inhale through the right nostril slowly and continuously. Cover the right nostril with your right thumb and hold your breath for a few seconds. Remove the ring finger and exhale slowly and continuously through the left nostril. Repeat the exercise at least ten times, keeping your breathing even and controlled.

19.- Walk through the field: One morning very early I left my house with all my family. We cross the city and go to the countryside. The sun began to send us its first rays and a fresh and pleasant air bathed our foreheads.

How happy I felt!

The Field is so Beautiful!

With what pleasure one runs on the plain, to rest afterwards under the shade of a corpulent tree. There are many birds and the wind moves the leaves of the trees. There is a river nearby where we can bathe. There are forests and pastures, cattle and cement, and houses of the peasants, where they offer us lunch. When I looked at the clock it was four o’clock in the afternoon and time had gone by without notice.

20.- Enjoy and know the silence: In monasteries, seminars and religious training centers there is silence. The redskins practiced with their children, teaching them silence. They sat on the floor at eleven o’clock at night with the light off and began to see and listen. They observe the minimum movements and noises, to determine what they were and where they came from. All for about an hour. When the children grew up they knew how to see in the dark.

21.- Expand the chest: It is done standing with the back very straight and the feet separated to the width of the hips. Interlace your fingers on your back, resting your hands on your buttocks, inhale and raise your arms behind you as high as you can comfortably, with your fingers entwined and your shoulders relaxed. Exhale and lower your arms, resting your hands on your buttocks again. Repeat this sequence several times.

22.- Delphinotherapy: It has been discovered that dolphins have an amazing healing capacity for man, especially the mentally disabled. Homer tells in the Odyssey that Ulysses is saved from the sea by two dolphins. The dolphins give a feeling of trust, familiarity and friendship. Children with Down Syndrome and Autistic have progressed a lot with dolphins.

23.- Massage: Press with adequate intensity certain parts of the body, mainly the muscular masses, for therapeutic purposes. The massages give sensation of well-being, reactivate the circulation and the stimulation, of the energetic systems. There are many kinds of massages.

24.- Hypnosis: It is a technique with which we achieve a different psycho-physiological state, that of the normal waking state. The person under hypnosis accepts as real the suggestions suggested by the hypnotist.

25.- Progressive Relaxation: This technique is based on the premise that the body’s responses or anxiety provoke thoughts and actions that involve muscle tension. Deep muscle relaxation reduces physiological tension, and is incompatible with anxiety. The habit of responding in one way overrides the habit of responding in another.

26.- Biofeedback: Study and control of the waves that are recorded in the electroencephalogram, it is a Biofeedback method, using a thermometer to take the temperature is a common biofeedback class. Biofeedback gives us the information about ourselves, through external instruments.

27.- Autogenic Training: Schultz 1.912. It is based on the observations made in hypnosis. The exercise or training in the subject is developed, from the self in order to configure the self. It consists in producing a general transformation of the subject of experimentation by physiological and rational exercises.

28.- Biofeedback: Voluntary or involuntary control that uses the mind of the subject for healing, showing the results of his own mental state on a device. Reduces blood pressure, asthma, migraine and muscular ailments.

29.- Aikido: Japanese art of self-defense. Emphasis is placed on harmony. It is presented as a physical manifestation of the energetic and spiritual laws of the universe.

30.- Alexander technique: Refers to the integration of posture and movement. Alexander discovered that a basic balance correction and a decrease in stress or tension occurs when there is a change in the relationship between the neck and the head. The reeducation is not done by physical exercises, or by manipulation, but by conditioning procedures that alter the body image and therefore the capacity for postural stability.

31.- Bioenergetic Analysis: This approach aims to understand the life of the body through its expression of vitality, gestures, emotions, feelings and relationships. The body is seen as an energetic process that participates in the world with instinctive, social, imaginative and creative expressions.

32.- Polarity therapy: This is a system of intense pressure massage on certain points, which resemble Chinese acupuncture in theory and practice. Improve posture and relieve blockages, to allow the free passage of energy in the body.

33.- Sensory Awareness: The objective is a certain degree of intellectual quietude in which each activity can be fully felt and allow its natural course and expression, free of technical inhibitions and images. If the ideas are quieted the person can work more automatically.

34.- Gestalt Therapy: Focus on the integration of personality. The objective of this form of psychotherapy is the totality, that the person realizes, admits and integrates their fragmented parts. Use the role play, exaggeration of the symptoms and behavior, the use of fantasy, the immediate moment, the use of the word.

35.- Dance and Dance: rhythmic body movements that follow a pattern usually accompanied by music and that serve as a form of communication or expression. Human beings express themselves through movement. Dance is the transformation of normal functions and common expressions in unusual movements for extraordinary purposes, including healing.

36.- Neurolinguistic Programming: NLP is being used by therapists as a way of curing physical and mental tensions through a tour of the body internally, inspecting each of the internal body parts and exciting and noticing the healing.

37.- Aromatherapy: This discipline provides a therapeutic use of pure aromas for a natural treatment and an important complement to help restore our balance and harmony.

38.- Acupuncture: Traditional Chinese medicine procedure based on the insertion and manipulation in more than 360 points of the human body. In China it is used in most hospitals. Relieves surgical pain and many other diseases, especially rheumatic ones.

39.- Painting: Painting is an art that has great aesthetic value and as such contains healing elements for those who practice it. The figures, colors, shapes, occupation, time all combine to help physical and mental healing.

40.- Writing: Writing is essential in verbal communication. There is a method called pass the letter that serves to express a love, make a claim, say something we dare not say and in general to express feelings, opinions, emotions and many other things.

41.- Transactional Analysis: This theory is based on three observable forms of the self called Father, the Adult and the Child. They are not hypothetical constructions such as Super-I, I and Ello. The transactional analysis is preferably used in groups. It is a rational method to understand behavior and is based on the assumption that any individual can learn to trust themselves, think for themselves, make their own decisions and express their feelings. It is done: Structural Analysis; Transactional Analysis; Analysis of the Games; Script Analysis

42.-Feedback: It consists of encouraging the participants to respond honestly and as openly as possible to each other; this allows the members to establish connections between their behaviors and the rest of the others, considered the first step to change behavior. It is received from the environment through the effects on the body and from the intentional communication of a teacher.

43.- Modeling: Refers to the learning that takes place when one person observes another executing a behavior that the first wants to learn. It can be spontaneous or stimulated.

44.- Conduct Test: It arises when there is difficulty between a member of the group and someone who may or may not belong to it; The most used technique here is the Game of Roles and especially the reverse of roles, used in order that the patient sees clearly the role of his antagonist in the conflict. Role playing allows a decrease in anxiety as the situation repeats itself.

45.- Motivational Factors and Social Reinforcement: These are important elements for changing attitudes and actions. Through the pressure of the group is to solidify and channel this pressure of the members of the group in therapeutic direction.

46.- Chiropractic: Technique that aims to correct the vertebral and peripheral alterations of the body. When the mobility of the spine is affected by trauma, by repetitive incorrect postures there is a blockage that can produce from a discomfort to a herniated disc accompanied by great pain if it affects the nerve. By manipulation, the articulation can be released from its fixation state, returning the movement and normalizing its function.

47.- Reading a book: Reading helps us to know, to be, to better understand the world and to live together in order to live together. Reading is essential for all the knowledge of life. There will always be reading because there will always be readers.

48.- Live and Let Live: It means to calm down, to stay still, to accept being as one is, not to harm anyone, to live honestly and to give each one what is his due. So the others around us can also live because we will not worry them, we will not bother them and we will all be happy.

49.- Putting yourself in activity: It means that we should not be idle all the time. Laziness is the mother of all vices. The activity helps the body and the mind. Especially work, dedication to the family and the community.

50.- Use the prayer: Paul said: Pray without ceasing ….

51.- Change Routines: The routine tires. You have to rest, you have to make trips even if they are short, change meals, paint the house in another color and be always aware of the current changes that take place every day.

52.- Telephone Therapy: When we feel anxiety, anguish, fear, we call someone by phone and we talk with that person. We will relieve the discomfort.

53.- Resting Enough: We have already said that the daily rest should be at least eight hours; the weekend rest should be enjoyed and the vacation rest should be taken advantage of if you can travel.

54.- Avoid being alone: Man is a gregarious being, that is to say that he likes and agrees to live in community. Family community or social community, but it must be interrelated.

55.- Monitor Anger and Resentments: Anger is worse than homicide and resentments enlarge the disease. Therefore it is necessary to control them first with patience and seconds with forgiveness.

56.- Be Indulgent with yourself: Forgive yourself, talk with our body and order our mind not to mortify us. It is incredible but he will obey.

57.- Watch exaggerated joys: Everything is extremely harmful and see why this happens to us, lest it exist for revenge and this is very bad.

58.- Take things calmly: There is nothing left of the trouble but fatigue.

59.- Be Grateful: Judas sold Christ because he was ungrateful.

60.- Stay alert: alert, attentive, with memory and get the understanding.

61.- Renew Ideas: Ideas should be helped with divergent thinking, that is, with initiative, creativity, curiosity, inference, induction and deduction.

62.- Personal Self-Control: Knowing that we always need to have greater authority, greater importance and dare to do more things than we have managed to do so far. The greatest authority is not the power but to acquire the admiration for the commitment of leadership that we have with our neighbor. The most important thing is to climb the scale of values and doing more is to make more number, more quantity, more creations and more inventions.

63.- Increase self-esteem: If we do not appreciate ourselves, who will? Self-esteem is essential, it is cause, it is principle, it is naturifact, it is axiom, it is initial, it is beginning, it is abstract, it is element, it is first and the first is first.

64.- Telling stories: Telling stories, stories, comics, stories, fables, myths, legends and novels has fascinated humanity. If we learn to tell stories and all these genres, we will go up in intelligence, in self-esteem, in values and in understanding. We will be one step away from acquiring a prize in the community with the title of “storyteller”. It’s a great way to preserve the mental health of the narrator and the entire listening community.

65.- Change the Way to Solve Problems: We have to first define the nature of the problems to know what is happening. Then use discernment to establish the most important points of the problem called selective coding; then combine facts with others through selective combination and then make selective comparison to establish background, previous forms of resolution and be ready to make decisions must be taken consciously after having analyzed the problem and used the tools and knowledge appropriate and necessary for the resolution satisfactory of the problem.

66.- Interpreting the World Better: Knowing that the world belongs to everyone and not grabbing it for ourselves alone, but neither letting it be removed. In the first case we would be praising ourselves and the one who praises will be humiliated, but in the second case we will be humiliating and that is not good for our self-esteem, unless we make it obligatory for the circumstances.

67.- Do Good Works: Let’s try to feed the hungry; to drink to the thirsty; dress the naked; visit the prisoners and the sick, help the widows in their tribulation and help the orphans. If we do this or try to achieve it in part, we will not waste our time and the forces of the cosmos will give us health and life.

68.- Leave the Worries: If we learn to relax, we will leave the worries; the two things go together but in the exclusion style there is concern. The best antidote to worries is the relaxation or relaxation of body and mind.

69.- Doing things with effort: The Liberator Simón Bolívar said it: patience and more patience “, effort and more effort; work and more work to have Homeland. The easy things are like the sidewalks: faster but insecure. Things done with effort are appreciated, easy things go like salt in the water. Recall that inheritances generally (not in all cases) disappear so quickly that they are not remembered.

50.- Walk 5 to 15 minutes

51.- Change Routines

52.- Telephone Therapy

53.- Resting Enough

54.- Avoid being alone

55.- Monitor Anger and Resentments

56.- Be Indulgent with yourself

57.- Watch exaggerated joys

58.- Take things calmly

59.- Be Grateful

60.- Stay alert

61.- Renew Ideas

62.- Personal Self-Control

63.- Increase self-esteem

64.- Telling stories

65.- Change the Way to Solve Problems

66.- Interpreting the World Better

67.- Do Good Works

68.- Leave the Worries

69.- Doing things with effort

70.- Buy a plant

71.- Take a nap

72.- Play a video game

73.- Read memories

74.- Do a mind map

75.- Watch a favorite movie

76.- Go to the circus if possible

77.- Go to a Museum

78.- Go to fish if possible

79.- See your favorites pictures

80.- Play with a kite

81.- Play and take care of a pet

82.- Listen Mozart’s music

83.- Take a cold shower then a warm shower

84.- Have a relaxing massage

85.- See the sunset

86.- Take pictures outside

87.- Remembering good times in childhood

88.- Paint your nails by yourself

89.- Practices good make up

90.- Remembering your favorites jokes

91.- Plant a tree

92.- Visit a friend you have not visited in times

93.- Remembering all your best vacations

94.- Recall your best travel

95.- Recall your best performance when childhood

96.- Remembering your best friends

97.- Pray your best prayer

98.- Do a good thing to somebody

99.- Call some family members you have not called in times

100.- Cook your favorite dish