abstract
| - If you find yourself showing signs of excessive stress, you can enhance your coping skills through techniques like cognitive restructuring, relaxation, exercise, proper nutrition, and anger management training. Cognitive Restructuring is essentially changing the way you think about situations. Also called reframing, cognitive restructuring is a tool that helps you to reduce negative, irrational, or critical self-talk and get to the truth about a situation. It is based on the theory that our attitudes are determined by what we tell ourselves, and therefore, that positive self-talk can create a positive mood and reduce our stress.
* Relaxation techniques help you manage stress and improve your concentration and health.
* Muscle relaxation: Beginning with your face, tense your muscles and hold for 5-10 seconds. Release. Repeat. Then move on to other muscles -- jaw, shoulders, arms, hands, abdomen, quads, thighs, legs, ankles – working down to your feet. Repeat until you’ve relaxed all muscles throughout your body.
* Correct your posture: Straightening your spine aids circulation and helps reduce muscle tension.
* Visualization: While in a comfortable position, imagine yourself in your favorite place or a calm location, like the beach. Imagine the specific details: How does it smell? Sound? Feel? What do you see?
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