Laugh Away Your Stress
Another beautiful way to destress is to cultivate a group of friends who are good conversationists who can make us laugh by laughing over trifles, that is their style of talking and laughing. Seek the company of such joyful persons. The latest research shows that after laughter, levels of Immuno – globin A increase in the Mucus lining of the nasal cavity, and this Immunoglobin A helps people to fight illness by marking out invading bacteria and viruses for destruction by white blood cells, other wise when, we are over stressed, these lurking around bacteria/viruses can attack furiously and make us fall ill. There is a famous saying -“Laughter is the best Medicine”.
Now, if our eyes are feeling tired due to their over-use, another thing I recommend is to “Palm The Eyes”, a technique advocated by W.H. Bates in his famous book “Better Eye Sight Without Glasses”. In this, we close our both eyes and then cover the right eye with the help of cupped right palm and left eye with the left cupped palm, without, putting any pressure on our eyeballs or obstructing the flow of breath from the nose. Look into this darkness as long as convenient, then remove the palms from the eyes and then open the eyes slowly. This is a sort of silencing meditation which relaxes the eyes and hence repairs them.
The simplest breathing mantra to provide succour to the tired eyes is :-
Inhale with = SHAFFAN
Exhale with = NOOFFESH.
Another suggestive mantra to give pranic life energy to the eyes, the pituitary gland and the left brain (the brow chakra) is :-
Exhale with = NUTRITION
Inhale with = SHATRANNAN
This mantra also reminds us to give proper balanced nutrition to our eyes/brain and the body in general to bring about quicker normalisation of the eyesight
Enjoy Blissful Walking
Any brisk activity like brisk walking, playing tennis, Badminton, table tennis, swimming and dancing etc. will stop the process of thought getting hooked to stressful event. But in ordinary walking, stressful thoughts can still accompany us to torture our mind, but how to help a person who cannot walk fast or run due to ageing process. Also not much energy is left, when a person is stressed. So, Walking is the most acceptable aerobic exercise. Walk with a breathing mantra.
Blissful Walking with Mantra
Walking is the most natural aerobic movement, in fact it is the best yogic exercise, because it provides aerobic movement to all parts of the body, the total spine and the brain with movement of legs and the hands. And in order to dissolve the stress, walk with a breathing mantra. For that, notice which one of your nostrils is breathing more easily. Suppose, it is the right nostril, then start walking with the right foot forward first, inhaling with the mantra – ‘Shfaah and exhaling with the mantra –
BLISS or INS with the left foot forward. After walking for some time, you can change over. Now, inhale with the left foot forward with inhale mantra – Shfah and exhale with right foot forward with the mantra – BLISS or INS. This will bring about equilibrium in breathing by breathing from both the right and left nostrils, because the breathing mantra – Shfah/ INS or BLISS is neutral and it does neither prefer left brain nor right brain and the mantra Shfah enables us to open our Sushumna opening in the spine for the divine kundalini energy to move up with the sonic resonant energy of word S or Sh.
The word ‘F helps to fill our lungs to their optimum capacity and the word Fan yokes us with infinity – the superconsciousness to draw in as much pranic life energy as possible, and to dissolve our stress completely. Thus, I call it the blissful walking, because the above walking mantra, besides fulfilling our total Being with pranic life energy, it is very suggestive – the inhale mantra Shfah in Urdu language means Health giving and the exhale mantra – Bliss besides helping us to exhale completely upto the breath centre’s’, gives us the hypnotic blissful feelings.
Best Stress Dissolving Exercise
For those persons, who due to ageing or otherwise can not even walk, for them, I advocate stationary walking i.e. sit comfortably in a chair or stand comfortably with spine erect, move up your hands alternately as in natural walking. If the right nostril is more open for breathing, start with the right hand up first. Thus, we will be in tune with nature. Then after 10 to 20 movements of hands as convenient, rest for a while and then start with the left hand up first, it will now open up the left nostril for breathing.
Thus, it will bring about – Equilibrium in breathing, restoring equilibrium in our Mind to dissolve stress completely. Do it for 10 to 20 times as convenient. Convenience should be the watch-word in all our doings. This exercise re-establishes the communication between the heart and the brain, through the cervical region of the spine by these alternate hand movements. Thus, I call it one of the best Anti-Stress Exercise. After a few days of this exercise you will start experiencing the on-rush of bio-energy blissful currents in the neck, in the brain and in the hands, after you finish the exercise and watch what is happening in the mind.
Symphony of Body, Brain and Soul
An ultimate breathing mantra to bring about symphony of body, brain and soul to absolve a person of stressful conditions is :-
Inhale with = ASHA – BRA – HA – ATMAN
Exhale with = IMTI – HOO – BROO – SHEEN
1. With the word ASHA which means hope, we stimulate both the Muladhara (Basic) and Swadhistana (ovary) chakras. With the word BRA, we cover the Navel and the heart Chakras, thus with Asha – Bra, we breathe totally and cover the whole lower body.
2. With word ‘HA’ we re-establish the communication link between the body and the brain besides stimulating the Thyroid gland.
3. The right brain is stimulated with M.
4. And the word ATMAN’ (which means soul) yokes our total BEING with Infinity – the superconsciousness – the super soul to fulfill our total BEING with pranic life energy.
Thus, truly this breathing mantra brings about the symphony between our Body, Brain and the Soul. Another breathing mantra to achieve this Harmony is
Exhale with = HI, YOU – RE – ILLUMINATE
Inhale with = ALLARA – YAHA- NAMANT
This mantra includes N to stimulate the left brain and pituitary gland and thus illuminates the total brain/body system.
Sleep and Rest :
Deep sleep is the best tranquiliser and dissolver of stress. It is during this deep sleep period that there is a rise in the output of the growth hormone and protein production is stepped up. The body repairs itself and the dead cells are replaced. All the healing breathing mantras which contain the word ‘M’ – the seed word for crown chakra are very helpful in endowing deep sleep.
Similarly during the working period also, after any brisk activity of body or mind, proper rest is a must, for which we should lie down on the back in a completely relaxed state with arms lying comfortably along the body. During the rest period, if we can watch the flow of breath at the tip of our nose or the rise and fall of navel point as we breathe, it will relax us completely in 10 minutes or so. This relaxation restores the harmony between our body and mind.
Also, while lying down, we can inhale with -SMAN – and exhale with MSIEN -. This mantra yokes us with Infinity – the super consciousness with the word MAN and supplies the required pranic life energy to the stressed mind and the word ‘M’ stimulates the crown chakra and the pineal gland which releases the tranquility endowing hormone – Melatonin to give us also a restful sleep, thus this Mantra restores the harmony between our body (S), mind (M) and the soul (AN).
Congenial Company And Honey :
You can pleasantly, play with your sons/ daughters or grand children, kiss them affectionately to completely dissolve depression. Or enjoy a love play with your own wife- a few warm embraces will completely evaporate the depression or let some one massage & rub the shoulders, arms/spine to restore the blocked flow, or enjoy a hot or cold bath depending upon the season, a cold bath in the hot season & a hot bath in the cold season. This will freshen us up & thus destress us.
Another very useful method to destress in cold season is to warm your both feet in a luke warm water, your feet dipped beyond the ankles for ten minutes or so; and then dry up your feet with a hand towel. This will warm your feet and your spine and re-establish the communication along the blocked spine, because spine blocking is the first casuality due to acute stress.
And above all, let us not forget the role a nourishing balanced food can play to dissolve the stress, and for quick relief to stressed mind, take a spoonful of Honey on the tongue; I also take about 60 pieces of raisins (dried grapes) taking 20 pieces at one time, in three lots so as to feel their luscious taste on the tongue by keeping them in the mouth for as long as possible for the fructose to be absorbed in the brain directly from the soft palate of the mouth or a good quality chocolate of my taste or one tea spoonful of glucose, taken on tongue in 4 lots of quarter spoons, so as to be absorbed directly on the tongue.
Afterwards, take a glass of water, just plain water which in itself is a great tranquiliser and the heat equaliser in the body and is also the integral part of each cell of our body with glucose and hence its great utility in drowning the stress, particularly in conjunction with something naturally sweet like honey on the tongue or five or six dates taken slowly by enjoying the taste of dates as much as possible.
Of course, incidently if you can date with a friend, there is nothing better to dissolve the stress or instead enjoy a ripe luscious mango, if in season, by keeping the luscious mango in the mouth for as long as possible & top it with a cold milk to dissolve the stress or enjoy taking a few oranges (not their extracted juice) so as to absorb yourself in the act of eating deliciously for as long as possible, to divert the attention from the cause of stress which constantly weighs upon the mind or one can munch any other seasonal fruit like Apple, Banana etc. or a bowl of mixed fruits or coconut water which is very nourishing and stress relieving.
The roughage of the fruits also protects the stomach linings against agonising stress secretions which irritate the stomach linings. Follow it up with a hot cup of tea/ coffee or a glass of hot/cold milk as it suits you.
All these natural multifarious ways to drown the stress are also being suggested to suit different persons’ temperament.
But, there are others who because of stress, cannot eat anything because they get a feeling of nausea or vomiting sensation. This could be either due to consuming large amount of alcoholic drinks overnight which damages the liver and irritates the linings of the stomach (see chapter on alcoholism) or a some people also suffer from nausea/vomiting due to the complete restriction of common salt from food as advised to high blood pressure patients, they are advised not to completely stop taking common salt but rather reduce its in-take, after consultation with the physician.
This vomiting or nausea feeling could also arise from too much smoking or taking lot of cups of coffee or tea etc. or this nausea could be the result of overwork or over-exposure to strong lights as in film shooting for very long hours.
This nausea feeling can be got over by exhaling deeply from the stomach while keeping the mouth half open, so that toxic vapours piled up in the stomach are exhaled out completely from the stomach. Using the following mantra for inhaling/ exhaling will definitely be of help.
Exhale with = PHROON
Inhale. With = PHRAAN
Inhale/exhale with mantra given above for ten to twenty times as convenient.