Dealing with stress is one thing we all must do. Knowing where you are on the ladder, or Cycle of Response, is a good indicator of action you need to take right now! While there are long term solutions that will reduce stress in the future, we need to begin by looking at short term solutions.
Stress Relaxation
Do something you enjoy. Listen to music. Work on a puzzle if you enjoy working puzzles and they don’t cause additional stress. Have some "me time" and perhaps, even, a "me place." Get a hobby. Learn something new. Don’t learn something because you must learn it; learn something because you want to know more about. Satisfy yourself.
I never was a great hunter or very good at fishing, but I spent a lot of time in the woods and casting bait into water. It was "me time" in which nothing else mattered. The woods were a "me place" where I could go and get away from the world. Beth and I are fortunate to live very close to several fishing holes, and we once went fishing almost every day after work. It might only be for an hour, but we "got away" from the office and everything else that happened during the day. Some days we might stand twenty or thirty yards apart while fishing. Even though we were together, each of us was able to experience "me time." Well, until she needed more bait on her hook!
Sex, of course, is a great way to relax. I wouldn’t recommend it at work, though. That could have the opposite effect. A set of headphones and good music would be a much better choice.
Music Enhances Stress Relaxation
The American Cancer Society states that music therapy is used in cancer treatment to help reduce the pain, anxiety and nausea caused by chemotherapy. Other clinical trials have shown that music therapy reduces blood pressure, heart rate, depression and anxiety. In other words, music therapy does what the parasympathetic nervous system is supposed to do during the body’s normal relaxation response.
Music is magic. When Beth sustained her anoxic brain injury, she awoke to a new world. She did not know who I was. She did not know she was married and had children. Yet she remembered words and melodies from music that had been part of her life. She also remembered our Cocker Spaniel, and I can’t explain that. In fact, I’m not really sure I want to know why she remembered the dog and didn’t remember me.
Beth was able to find comfort in music as she struggled in a new, strange world. Judy Martin-Urban watched her daughter, Courtney, fight through her new life after suffering a traumatic brain injury in an automobile accident. Judy wrote, "I'm confident that music will take its place among medical therapies. To me, there is no doubt that music is a wonderful gift to us and has many roles in our lives. Nothing is as soothing or as freeing to the soul as music."
Below you will find a link to more information about Music Therapy. There is another stress relaxation therapy we want to discuss in detail and that is Guided Imagery, the next article in this series.
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