Stress Relief: Stress Ball
II Stress Reliever II
Relieve Stress II Stress Relief Game II
Stress Busters II
Relieving Stress II
Stress Release II
Ways to Relieve Stress II
Stress Management Ball II
Stress Relief Techniques II Stress Relief Toy II
Stress
Relief Tip II Stress Reliever Game ||
Stress
Relief Naturally
|| Relieve Stress
Natural.
Relieve Stress by Doing Good.
Want to live longer, and relieve
stress by doing something that makes you feel good? Perform a small act
of kindness each and every day.
A National Institutes of Health
study found when people performed kind acts like donating money to
charity, they activated the part of the brain that produces oxytocin.
Oxytocin is a hormone that relaxes you according to Jordan Grafman, PhD,
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke chief of the
cognitive neuroscience section. Relaxation is a well known method to
relieve stress.
During the study, volunteers
weren’t actually donating money to charities. Their brain activity was
being measured as they played a computer game where they gave cash to
various sources. As they “donated” money to philanthropic organizations
instead of “keeping” it, the brain hormone was stimulated.
Other instances where oxytocin
is naturally produced is when you cuddle up to someone or a woman nurses
her infant. Oxytocin makes you feel more attached to others. Just think
about how stress melts away when you cuddle up to someone you love. Talk
about a way to
relieve stress naturally in spades!
So, let’s get started. We can’t
spend every moment of every waking hour sitting around and cuddling to
relieve stress, but we can do other things to reach out to people. We
can change our lives ( and live longer without stress), and do
our part in changing the world by volunteering.
There are opportunities galore
to help others through volunteering. The first step is to find something
you enjoy. If you like animals, why not volunteer to walk homeless dogs
at an animal shelter? Even if you can’t walk the animals to relieve
stress in you and the unfortunate, confused animals, there are other
tasks you can perform. There are never enough hands to complete all that
must be done to meet the needs of the animals.
Or, does your heart ache when
you see a homeless person out on the streets in obvious distress. Or,
what about families displaced by the slumping economy and record numbers
of foreclosures? Why not find a soup kitchen where you can give of
yourself to the less fortunate. It is a rare community where you would
find the homeless that doesn’t have a shelter where you could help.
While it is impractical for
anyone holding down a steady job to take such volunteering to the level
of a daily activity (sounds like a recipe to be stressed out rather than
stress relief), organized activities can be done on a monthly or weekly
schedule. But, why not on a daily basis, speak encouragement to those
around you? Why not strike up a friendly conversation to someone at the
laundromat, at the grocery store, anywhere you run into people you don’t
know and you spot someone who looks sad or lonely. Sometimes all you
have to do is smile.
For more volunteering ideas,
check out networkforgood.org, idealist.org, or volunteermatch.org.
Giving just a little can bring big rewards your way in the form of less
stress, a longer life, less illness, and a more rewarding life.
