RENEW YOU (Part 3)
October 8th 2017
Part 3 of our ‘Renew You’ guide looks at Relaxation techniques you can apply to your everyday life to bring about a sense of calm and peace.
Practicing self-relaxation helps the body and mind to de-stress, improving the quality of your life, as well as reducing many menopause symptoms, such as anxiety, low moods, panic attacks and insomnia, to name but a few.
In part 1 we covered diet details, part 2 showed you beneficial exercises and in Part 3, we will now show you how to get the best results using self-relaxation techniques.
Including: Breathing Techniques, Visualisation Therapy, Meditation and Alone Time
Including: Breathing Techniques, Visualisation Therapy, Meditation and Alone Time
Time to De-stress
Cortisol(the stress hormone) degrades collagen, the protein which keeps bones, joints, muscles, skin, hair and nails strong, supple and smooth.
When you live in a chronic state of stress, routinely bathing your body in cortisol, it becomes harder to continue to form healthy collagen and elastin, and even more so without the influence of oestrogen.
Your declining levels of this vital hormone make it hard for your body to reproduce sufficient collagen. This will now take its toll on your body in the guise of sore muscles, aching joints and ageing skin.
If you can decrease your levels of cortisol and increase your levels of beta endorphins, which act as anti-inflammatories in the body as well as in skin, you can go some way to reversing this damage.
How do you increase your beta endorphins?
Restful sleep, exercise, a healthy diet and practicing relaxation techniques
How do you increase your beta endorphins?
Restful sleep, exercise, a healthy diet and practicing relaxation techniques
BREATHING TECHNIQUES
Controlled breathing
Controlled breathing or conscious breathing can help calm the mind and body and can be especially helpfully when trying to drift off to sleep.
One of the most popular breathing techniques is the 4-7-8 Breath (also known as the Relaxing Breath)
Give it a try the next time you feel stressed, anxious or are having trouble sleeping.
Give it a try the next time you feel stressed, anxious or are having trouble sleeping.
• Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.
• Hold your breath for a count of seven.
• Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight. This is one breath.
• Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.
• Hold your breath for a count of seven.
• Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight. This is one breath.
• Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.
VISUALISATION THERAPY
What is Visualisation Therapy?
Visualization is the act of imagining yourself in a peaceful and safe environment - a place that makes you relaxed and happy - a favourite place or holiday maybe.
By transferring yourself there mentally, you're able to calm your mind and body and sufficiently distract yourself with something that relaxes you.
It’s not always easy to just visualise, it will need practice and preparation.
What’s most important is to go into a room where you won’t have any interruptions for as long as possible – at least twenty minutes is ideal. Perhaps you can even accomplish this at work if you are able to find a quiet room somewhere.
When you visualise, you need to imagine more than just the way a place looks. You also need to imagine your other senses being filled as well. For example, what does the place smell like? What does the place sound like? The more you can fill all of your senses, the more effective your visualisation technique will be.
Once done with your visualisation session, allow a couple of minutes to return to reality where you’ll soon feel more peaceful.
MEDITATION
Feed your soul
Meditation is about appreciating and enjoying each moment in time and achieving a state of thoughtless awareness, where the excessive stress-producing activities of the mind are neutralised without reducing alertness and effectiveness.
You focus your attention and eliminate the stream of thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress.
Meditation affects the body in exactly the opposite way that stress does, restoring it to a calm state and helping the body repair itself.
A 2011 study from the University of Massachusetts, Worchester, found that women who participated in meditation experienced a decrease in intensity of hot flushes and night sweats and an overall increase in the quality of life.
If you don’t practice meditation already, take the time to learn and make it a part of your daily life, you will find the benefits to be enormous.
ALONE TIME
Make Time For Yourself
You will find that the more time you spend alone, the more comfortable you become in your own skin because you can truly get to know yourself.
This provides you with more patience to accept yourself as you are, wherever you are in your journey.
This provides you with more patience to accept yourself as you are, wherever you are in your journey.
Being alone gives you the perfect opportunity for a little self reflection, since you aren’t spending so much time processing the thoughts and feelings of others.
Set aside a few minutes each day to be alone with your thoughts — just 10 minutes a day can help.
Silence your electronics and allow yourself to think for a while.
Think of it as having penciled in a meeting with yourself. Indulge yourself with thoughts that please you and make you feel happy. Take time to reflect on how you have overcome obstacles or how you would like to move forward with your life. What are your dreams and aspirations? You are never too old to have a plan.
If you aren’t used to solitude, it can feel uncomfortable at first. But creating that quiet time for yourself could be key to becoming the best version of yourself.
