Alternative Treatments for Chronic Stress
Stress is an everyday word that you can encounter too often in this busy, fast-moving world. While a week’s worth of stress may easily be relieved after a Friday night with friends, stress over long periods of time can result into a wide array of conditions, encompassing physical, mental, and behavioral aspects.
Stress is the body’s response to the pressure perceived from our surroundings. While a small daily dose of stress might be normal, exposure to excessive stress for a prolonged period can lead to more serious diseases and behavioral disorders.
Chronic stress is one of the known culprits for developing anxiety, depression, asthma, heart issues, diabetes, and even for premature death.
Conventional versus Alternative Treatment
Conventional medicine often focuses on treating the mind and the body separately. But in most recent studies, more scientific evidence shows the interconnection between the body and the mind through certain metabolic, hormonal, and biochemical changes that the body undergoes when it is under stress.
On the other hand, proponents of alternative treatments have long since believed that the body reacts differently when the mind and body are in a state of imbalance.
Primarily, the focus of alternative medicine is to treat the body and the mind as a whole, creating a unified balance that promotes relaxation and reduces stress.
All Natural Methods to Relieve Stress
Aromatherapy
Ever heard of lavender and bergamot? These are just two of some popular essential oils that are known for producing aromas found to be effective in relieving stress and muscle tension. Other extracts from certain plants and flowers can bring this wonderful effect to anyone who has inhaled the scent. For an even better result, combine aromatherapy with massage.
Massage
Swedish, Shiatsu, Thai – these are just some of the most popular massage techniques that are used worldwide. In general, massage therapy helps relaxes the muscles and improve blood circulation. This not only reduces stress levels, but alleviates pain as well.
You can go from gentle to deep tissue massages, depending on your tolerance. However, if you suffer from any musculoskeletal condition, make sure you to seek your doctor’s advice first to ask if massage is appropriate for you.
Meditation
Meditation is an ancient practice in Asia that was used to maintain peace and tranquility. It offers a wide range of physical, emotional, and mental benefits, including the relief of stress.
Meditation involves different principles and practices, but commonly involves deep breathing exercises and repeating positive thoughts mentally.
Aside from helping the person achieve a calm state of mind, the deep breathing exercises also offer added benefits such as increasing the intake of oxygen-rich air. And oxygen feeds the cells, thereby aiding in healing of the body and mind.
Yoga
Yoga is sometimes considered as a form of meditation and vice versa. The discipline combines physical and mental aspects to control stress, involving specific poses and controlled breathing aimed at unifying the body, mind, and spirit.
Just like meditational practices, yoga can relieve and prevent chronic stress through relaxation techniques.
Acupressure and Acupuncture
These two ancient Chinese arts of healing are based on the concept of life energy or “chi”, which stimulates the body’s own healing ability. Any malady that the body acquires is attributed to the interruption in the flow of chi, when the body’s natural pathways are blocked.
Acupressure and acupuncture are aimed at freeing the pathways from these blocks by working on certain points. Whereas acupressure uses finger pressures on those points, acupuncture employs insertion of very fine needles through the skin on the same points.
Hypnotherapy
Through hypnosis, the power of the unconscious mind is unlocked, which in turn offers relaxation and a renewed, positive outlook that combats stress.
Final Thoughts
Every person develops their own unique way to cope with stress, and alternative treatments only present a few of these options. It is best to engage in a practice that you enjoy and can commit to in order to see long-term results. Finding the source of the stress by utilizing intuition and gentle healing techniques can create a new reality. Book a session and explore your current reality so you can expedite the creation of a new you.
