Mental Health Care

Techniques such as meditation, yoga, muscle relaxation, guided imagery, and slow breathing can help you relax. Your goal is to lower your heart rate and blood pressure while reducing muscle tension.

Meditation. The relaxation response can be achieved just by following four simple steps: assume a comfortable position, close your eyes, concentrate on a single word, sound or phrase, and cast off all other thoughts. This can have many physiological benefits, including decreased heart rate, lower blood pressure and reduced oxygen consumption. It is a mechanism that is the opposite of the fight-or-flee response. Practise it for 10 to 20 minutes daily, and being a natural antidote to stress, it would ease your nerves.

Yoga. Yoga is a way of life prescribed and practised by our forefathers for almost 6,000 years. Seeking perfect health and inner harmony through a unique lifestyle, yoga, unlike Western medicine, seeks holistic solutions. Regular practice of yogic breathing (pranayama), yogic postures (asanas), and meditation can help reduce anxiety, slow down breathing, lower blood pressure, alter brain waves, and make your heart work more efficiently. On top of all that, it just makes you feel good.

But before you sign up for the nearest yoga class, you need to know that yoga is not easy. It demands discipline and concentration. The good news is you can do yoga almost anywhere and you can get its benefits in just 20 minutes, practising it once daily. If you want to give yoga a try, your must find a good instructor to teach you yogic breathing and poses. Doing it incorrectly or going beyond your limits can cause injury. Make sure your instructor can adapt poses for different levels of flexibility. Also, tell him or her about any physical limitations you have, and ask whether there are postures you should avoid.

Other techniques. The techniques of progressive muscle relaxation, visual imagery and relaxed breathing have been discussed. Practise them to prevail over stress and a range of stress-related disorders, including hypertension, migraine and tension headaches, and chronic pain.

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