Heart health and stress levels go hand in hand. Whether it is the increase in blood pressure you get when dealing with stressful situations day in and day out, or the junk food you are more prone to eat when struggling with stress and not finding time to eat, a stressful life increases your chances for having heart problems and cardiovascular issues. One tool in the battle is to use relaxation techniques, meditation, and yoga to help you better be able to handle stressful situations.
I know, I know. If you are really living a stressful lifestyle, just relaxing can be one of the most difficult and stressful things you can attempt to do. That is why it can be better to call in the big guns and use some well-established techniques to help you focus and get your blood pressure down.
1) Relaxation techniques – There are many schools of thought when it comes to relaxation techniques, but most involve breathing and focusing on shutting off your internal dialogue. If this is something that is difficult for you, you might want to try hypnosis, a technique which allows you to focus on someone else’s voice while relaxing. There are plenty of hypnosis CD’s or podcasts, or you can try visiting a professional and getting support from them.
2) Meditation – You can work with formal forms of meditation, or try to relax on your own. Schools such as Transcendental Meditation, have many tools to help you focus and move past your stress. If you are having trouble meditating, reach out to a meditation school and learn some techniques to focus your meditation. Some studies have shown that 20 minutes a day can decrease stress levels and improve heart health in a very short amount of time.
3) Yoga – So you aren’t very flexible and the idea of bending and twisting doesn’t appeal to you? Have you ever actually tried yoga? It helps inflexible people, myself included, actually increase their flexibility. Seriously. After three months of yoga, I found I had highly increased my ability to touch my toes, bend, and twist. And those heart openers? They really work. While I find it difficult to fully relax during yoga, I am able to focus, and that is the first step. My thoughts pull away from work and stress and focus on me, now. If you are going to start yoga, you should sign up for a class. If you aren’t into too much bending, you might want to try Kundalini yoga, for a nice guided meditation. Even though it may seem hard to believe at this stage, you may even enjoy it enough to want to become a teacher. There are many great programs for this, so a quick search using keywords such as “yoga instructor chicago“, for example, should help you to find a suitable course in your area.
Relaxation, meditation, and yoga are three different tools you can use to help improve your heart health today and tomorrow. They are also ways to change your lifestyle. You may find that after centering with 20 minutes of meditation each day, you are less likely to reach for that fast food hamburger or second glass of wine. Instead you feel relaxed and ready to cook a nice meal.
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