Using relaxation for stress management

Stress and challenges are an inevitable part of life.

Stress can be good: it can push us to learn new skills, stretch our limits, and encourage us to reach new levels of mastery and success.

But when stress is severe, and especially when it is also chronic, then that is another matter. Severe stress exacts a toll on both body and mind. Mentally we feel anxious and tense and can easily become overwhelmed and exhausted. Over time we can end up feeling hopeless and helpless, depleted and depressed. Physically, stress takes its toll throughout the body with effects ranging all the way from tense muscles down to disrupted functioning of our genes.

However, there are many skillful strategies and practices for dealing with it, besides meditation. These include several of the other Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes, or TLCs, that we are looking at. By using one or more of them we can reduce our stress and sometimes even learn and grow from it.