Ten Easy Ways to De-Stress

August 11, 2005
By Elisabeth Deffner, National Fibromyalgia Association

Everyone needs time to relax - but relaxation is especially important for Fibromyalgia patients, who may be thrown into a flare by excessive stress. Try one of these tips the next time your tension level is on the rise.

Be aware of your body. "Just as one's mental attitudes affect his body, so also his bodily postures affect his mind," writes Sri Kriyananda in Yoga Postures for Higher Awareness . "Slumped shoulders and a bent spine can actually, to some extent, induce moodiness. Tensed stomach muscles can - again, to some extent - induce mental anxiety... As physical tensions can induce, as well as reinforce, mental tensions, so physical relaxation can bring serenity to a worried mind."

Listen to music that makes you feel calm and peaceful. Try setting aside a period of time just to listen to that music while doing nothing else - then try listening to that music while you're doing other tasks.

Slow down. Even if you're running late, don't allow yourself to rush - which will only make you feel tenser. "Begin each activity, such as driving, speaking at a meeting, or walking onto your commuter train, with one gentle inhalation, followed by a calm exhalation," suggests Judith Lasater in Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life .

Take a warm bath. Focus on how the water eases the pain in your muscles, and the sensation of tension draining out of your body.

Breathe. Deep breathing can reduce stress and increase relaxation. Try taking a deep breath, and then releasing it twice as slowly as you inhaled. "Change the breathing, and one's mental state may be changed, too," writes Kriyananda. He adds that deep breathing practice will eventually relax any muscular restrictions that exist in the area of the diaphragm and the upper part of the chest.

Participate in activities that leave you with a sense of relaxation and peacefulness. Some people may go for a walk, join in an aquatics class, or go to the gym for a light workout, releasing endorphins with their physical activity and thus improving their mood. Some physical activities have a built-in relaxation response, such as yoga or tai chi.

Pray or meditate. Studies have shown that mindfulness meditation can reduce pain, and that prayer can effect healing. Both prayer and meditation are also practices in relaxation, a sort of time-out in the middle of our hectic lives.

Rediscover your hobbies. Before you were diagnosed with FM, what activities did you enjoy? Think of creative ways you can bring those activities back into your life. Maybe working in the garden makes your back ache - but if you plant flowers in pots, and work at a table of comfortable height, you may be able to garden once again.

Dean L. Mondell and Patty Wright, authors of the recently-released Living with Fibromyalgia , advocate "deep relaxation," a multi-step technique that induces a sense of tension-free calm. Start the process with deep breathing from your diaphragm and progressive muscle relaxation, focusing your attention on different muscle groups successively. Inductions - oral suggestions to enter a peaceful state - can be used to enter deep relaxation. It's a sort of self-hypnosis, the authors say. "Deep mental relaxation can also help control pain," they write. "Pain can also be utilized as motivation to drive the relaxation state deeper; deeper states are more detached from your bodily sensations and more attuned to your inner state of gentle calm." 

• Choose a relaxing practice - and practice it! "Repeated practice is one of the most basic principles of most spiritual and meditative paths," writes Richard Carlson in Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... and it's all small stuff . "In other words, whatever you practice most is what you will become." If you want to be a more relaxed, less stressed person - practice relaxing and reducing your stress.

This article was reprinted with the permission of the National Fibromyalgia Association.