relax!....Relax!!....RELAX!!!

Ohhh Man, daily life can be stressful for sure! The term "Lifetime Stress Exposure" is how much stress your mind and body has delt with over years. Chronic stress is a continued amount of time in which there is an imbalance between the demands on you and your ability to cope with those demands. Who hasn't felt that? Chronic Sress is harmful to your entire body, physically, mentally and emotionally. It can increase your risk of headaches, sleep issues, chronic pain, weight gain, cardiovascular isssues, diabetes, memory impairment and altered emotions and mood.....Oh NO! What to do about? It starts with relaxing. But how? Many years ago when we lived on a military base on the island of Guam my husband was delpoyed to the Middle East for 5 months. I was with two children on this small island and it was summer vacation, so 24/7 Mom time with no Dad coming home at the end of each day to keep us from attacking one another. I had TMJ at the time, which means my jaw hurt A LOT and my dentist sent me to do biofeedback for jaw tension due to stress. I went and the tech put sensors for tension on my jaw line and temperature sensors on my fingers. He tested me and asked how tense my jaw felt on a scale of 1-10. I said 3 and he looked at the result on the computer screen and said, "Surpise, it's at a 9." I was shocked, I had no idea that I was that tense. Through biofeedback I could look at the screen and see the tension rating, practice relaxing, and watch the number go down. The temperature sensors on my fingers told the tech that my hands were very cold. Having cold hands and feet is commonly associated with stress because your stressed body is sending the blood into the core of your body. So I watched on the screen and as I relaxed the temperature in my hands went up. I learned how to warm up my hands = being more relaxed. I learned how to reduce my stress with these physical changes. I know you do not have the computer screen to help you but you can still practice these two exercises. You can sit or lie down to practice this. I relax my shoulders first, turn my head from side to side a few times then concentarte on relaxing my jaw by keeping my teeth separated slightly. You might want to wiggle your jaw around a bit to UNLOCK it. As I am relaxing my jaw I relax my hands and think about blood flowing into my fingers and toes. Test yourself. You can touch your fingers to your face before you start and then after to see if your hand feels warmer. This does take practice, but you can learn it. Maybe if you have kids out of school for the summer you should try this NOW!