Set Up a Soothing Home Spa Experience
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com Guide
Updated April 02, 2006
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board
If you’re as busy and stressed as most of us, you may not take time out for self care very often. However, personal pampering has many stress relieving benefits, and should be incorporated as part of a low stress lifestyle. If you don’t have the budget for a high end spa, you can create a relaxing home spa experience for yourself. The following are some basic elements to include in creating a home spa experience that will melt away stress and leave you feeling pampered and relaxed.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: 30 Minutes to One Hour
Here's How:
1. Privacy: Perhaps the most important part of the home spa experience is being sure you have some uninterrupted time for just you. If you have to hop out of the tub to circumvent a catastrophe with your toddler or answer a string of calls, you may end up feeling even more tense! So make arrangements for some uninterrupted solitude, let the phone go to voice mail, and prepare to indulge.
2. Music: If you can arrange to have music in your bathroom, you’ll be glad you did. The right soothing melodies can help melt away the stress, make you feel more removed from reality, and, if you live with others, drown out the household sounds that may remind you of everything else going on, taking your attention away from the here and now of your home spa experience.
3. Lighting: You’d be surprised at how lighting can create a stress-relieving mood. Lighting the room with candles can fill the area with a soothing scent and create a very relaxing atmosphere.
4. Bath Products: You can go a long way in creating a luxurious bath with a few helpful products. Lavender-scented bubble bath, for example, uses the power of aromatherapy to soothe you. Body scrubs are used in spas to exfoliate skin, and can be used at home as well. There are also skin-moisturizing oils you can add to your bath to nourish your skin and make the pampered feeling last.
5. Beauty Treatments: While you’re relaxing, you may as well get more beautiful! Putting a conditioning treatment in your hair and a purifying masque on your face can make your face and scalp feel good and leave you looking more beautiful afterward. Rubbing your dry skin with a loofah and scrubbing calloused feet with a pumice stone can be a little more work, but you’ll love the results, and it’ll only take a few minutes.
6. After Tub Care: You may want to follow up after you get out of the tub by applying a rich conditioning cream to your skin and a coat of nail polish to your toes. Again this will keep you feeling more pampered between spa treatments.
7. Massage: You may think a home spa treatment can’t include a massage, but it can! If you can’t enlist the soothing hands of a partner, you can use a self-massager to do the same job: loosen up tight muscles, promote circulation, and make you feel great. Or, if you’re really in the mood to indulge, you can even hire a professional massage therapist to come to your house!
Tips:
1. Block off a specific amount of time for yourself. Sometimes busy people have a hard time just doing nothing because we can think of so many other things that need doing. If this break is scheduled to be a specific length, you may feel more entitled to just enjoy it.
2. Try to do this on a regular schedule, like once a week or twice a month. With repetition, you may see your spa time making a significant impact on your overall stress level!
3. Don’t feel guilty for taking some time for yourself—you deserve it!
What You Need:
* A bathroom,
* A tub.
* Some privacy.
MY THOUGHTS
believe me. it works. it can be done at home. you may have to make some adjustments- especially if you don;t have a tub and a partner. doing the rest still works.
Showing posts with label distraction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label distraction. Show all posts
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Saturday, August 29, 2009
laughing cure to stress
The Stress Management and Health Benefits of Laughter
The Laughing Cure
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com
Updated: April 22, 2008
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board
Research has shown health benefits of laughter ranging from strengthening the immune system to reducing food cravings to increasing one's threshold for pain. There's even an emerging therapeutic field known as humor therapy to help people heal more quickly, among other things. Humor also has several important stress relieving benefits.
Stress Management Benefits of Laughter:
* Hormones: Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline), dopamine and growth hormone. It also increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins, and neurotransmitters. Laughter increases the number of antibody-producing cells and enhances the effectiveness of T cells. All this means a stronger immune system, as well as fewer physical effects of stress.
* Physical Release: Have you ever felt like you "have to laugh or I'll cry"? Have you experienced the cleansed feeling after a good laugh? Laughter provides a physical and emotional release.
* Internal Workout: A good belly laugh exercises the diaphragm, contracts the abs and even works out the shoulders, leaving muscles more relaxed afterward. It even provides a good workout for the heart.
* Distraction: Laughter brings the focus away from anger, guilt, stress and negative emotions in a more beneficial way than other mere distractions.
* Perspective: Studies show that our response to stressful events can be altered by whether we view something as a 'threat' or a 'challenge'. Humor can give us a more lighthearted perspective and help us view events as 'challenges', thereby making them less threatening and more positive.
* Social Benefits of Laughter: Laughter connects us with others. Also, laughter is contagious, so if you bring more laughter into your life, you can most likely help others around you to laugh more, and realize these benefits as well. By elevating the mood of those around you, you can reduce their stress levels, and perhaps improve the quality of social interaction you experience with them, reducing your stress level even more!
How To Use Laughter:
Laughter is one of my all-time favorite stress management strategies because it's free, convenient, and beneficial in so many ways. You can get more laughter in your life with the following strategies:
* T.V. and Movies: There's no shortage of laughter opportunities from the entertainment, both at the theater and in the aisles of the video stores, as well as at home with T.V. comedies. While wasting your time watching something marginally funny may actually frustrate you, watching truly hilarious movies and shows is an easy way to get laughter into your life whenever you need it.
* Laugh With Friends: Going to a movie or comedy club with friends is a great way to get more laughter in your life. The contagious effects of laughter may mean you'll laugh more than you otherwise would have during the show, plus you'll have jokes to reference at later times. Having friends over for a party or game night is also a great setup for laughter and other good feelings.
* Find Humor In Your Life: Instead of complaining about life's frustrations, try to laugh about them. If something is so frustrating or depressing it's ridiculous, realize that you could 'look back on it and laugh.' Think of how it will sound as a story you could tell to your friends, and then see if you can laugh about it now. With this attitude, you may also find yourself being more lighthearted and silly, giving yourself and those around you more to laugh about. Approach life in a more mirthful way and you'll find you're less stressed about negative events, and you'll achieve the health benefits of laughter. (See this article on maintaining a sense of humor.
* 'Fake It Until You Make It': Just as studies show the positive effects of smiling occur whether the smile is fake or real, faked laughter also provides the benefits mentioned above. So smile more, and fake laughter; you'll still achieve positive effects, and the fake merriment may lead to real smiles and laughter.
* More on Having Fun: See these additional suggestions on laughing more and having fun in your life.
Sources:
Bennett MP, Lengacher C. Humor and Laughter May Influence Health: III. Laughter and Health Outcomes. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, March 2008.
Bennett MP, Zeller JM, Rosenberg L, McCann J. The Effect of Mirthful Laughter on Stress and Natural Killer Cell Activity.. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, March-April 2003.
Berk LS, Felten DL, Tan SA, Bittman BB, Westengard J. Modulation of Neuroimmune Parameters During the Eustress of Humor-Associated Mirthful Laughter.. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, March 2001.
Skinner N, Brewer N. The Dynamics of Threat and Challenge Appraisals Prior to Stressful Achievement Events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, September 2002.
MY THOUGHTS
It's obvious - i like this article. It talks of one of my favorite topics - laughter. And it talks of how laughter can relieve stress. Laughter does take out tension. The more we laugh, the more we forget our stress.
The Laughing Cure
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com
Updated: April 22, 2008
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board
Research has shown health benefits of laughter ranging from strengthening the immune system to reducing food cravings to increasing one's threshold for pain. There's even an emerging therapeutic field known as humor therapy to help people heal more quickly, among other things. Humor also has several important stress relieving benefits.
Stress Management Benefits of Laughter:
* Hormones: Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline), dopamine and growth hormone. It also increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins, and neurotransmitters. Laughter increases the number of antibody-producing cells and enhances the effectiveness of T cells. All this means a stronger immune system, as well as fewer physical effects of stress.
* Physical Release: Have you ever felt like you "have to laugh or I'll cry"? Have you experienced the cleansed feeling after a good laugh? Laughter provides a physical and emotional release.
* Internal Workout: A good belly laugh exercises the diaphragm, contracts the abs and even works out the shoulders, leaving muscles more relaxed afterward. It even provides a good workout for the heart.
* Distraction: Laughter brings the focus away from anger, guilt, stress and negative emotions in a more beneficial way than other mere distractions.
* Perspective: Studies show that our response to stressful events can be altered by whether we view something as a 'threat' or a 'challenge'. Humor can give us a more lighthearted perspective and help us view events as 'challenges', thereby making them less threatening and more positive.
* Social Benefits of Laughter: Laughter connects us with others. Also, laughter is contagious, so if you bring more laughter into your life, you can most likely help others around you to laugh more, and realize these benefits as well. By elevating the mood of those around you, you can reduce their stress levels, and perhaps improve the quality of social interaction you experience with them, reducing your stress level even more!
How To Use Laughter:
Laughter is one of my all-time favorite stress management strategies because it's free, convenient, and beneficial in so many ways. You can get more laughter in your life with the following strategies:
* T.V. and Movies: There's no shortage of laughter opportunities from the entertainment, both at the theater and in the aisles of the video stores, as well as at home with T.V. comedies. While wasting your time watching something marginally funny may actually frustrate you, watching truly hilarious movies and shows is an easy way to get laughter into your life whenever you need it.
* Laugh With Friends: Going to a movie or comedy club with friends is a great way to get more laughter in your life. The contagious effects of laughter may mean you'll laugh more than you otherwise would have during the show, plus you'll have jokes to reference at later times. Having friends over for a party or game night is also a great setup for laughter and other good feelings.
* Find Humor In Your Life: Instead of complaining about life's frustrations, try to laugh about them. If something is so frustrating or depressing it's ridiculous, realize that you could 'look back on it and laugh.' Think of how it will sound as a story you could tell to your friends, and then see if you can laugh about it now. With this attitude, you may also find yourself being more lighthearted and silly, giving yourself and those around you more to laugh about. Approach life in a more mirthful way and you'll find you're less stressed about negative events, and you'll achieve the health benefits of laughter. (See this article on maintaining a sense of humor.
* 'Fake It Until You Make It': Just as studies show the positive effects of smiling occur whether the smile is fake or real, faked laughter also provides the benefits mentioned above. So smile more, and fake laughter; you'll still achieve positive effects, and the fake merriment may lead to real smiles and laughter.
* More on Having Fun: See these additional suggestions on laughing more and having fun in your life.
Sources:
Bennett MP, Lengacher C. Humor and Laughter May Influence Health: III. Laughter and Health Outcomes. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, March 2008.
Bennett MP, Zeller JM, Rosenberg L, McCann J. The Effect of Mirthful Laughter on Stress and Natural Killer Cell Activity.. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, March-April 2003.
Berk LS, Felten DL, Tan SA, Bittman BB, Westengard J. Modulation of Neuroimmune Parameters During the Eustress of Humor-Associated Mirthful Laughter.. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, March 2001.
Skinner N, Brewer N. The Dynamics of Threat and Challenge Appraisals Prior to Stressful Achievement Events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, September 2002.
MY THOUGHTS
It's obvious - i like this article. It talks of one of my favorite topics - laughter. And it talks of how laughter can relieve stress. Laughter does take out tension. The more we laugh, the more we forget our stress.
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