How to effectively relieve stress and recover, how to increase resistance to stress?

A. How to relieve stress

Rehabilitation

If you are stressed (or overworked) and have unpleasant sensations - increased nervous tension, stiffness, anxiety, anxiety, fear, headache, decreased mental or physical strength - if you want to relax or fall asleep but cannot achieve it, use simple but effective rehabilitation techniques.

1. With light hand movements, without causing yourself pain, massage the most tense or painful areas of the neck while sitting or walking around the room. If the hands get tired at the same time, they should be shaken from time to time, continuing the self-massage for about 5 minutes.
2. Stand up (if it is difficult - continue to sit or lie down), stretch your arms in front of you, keep them relaxed at the elbows and perform the first "ideomotor" technique, imagine mentally that your arms begin to smoothly automatically spread apart in different directions without muscle effort. If the arms begin to separate, this means that relaxation has turned on and stress reduction begins. Wait until your arms are completely apart, and repeat this technique 3-4 times in a row. If your hands, with all your efforts, do not part, then you are "squeezed". In this case, you should do any of your usual light warm-up movements and several inhales and exhales, slightly deeper than usual. Shake your hands and repeat the separation technique again.
3. Regardless of whether the first "ideomotor" technique turned out or not, spread your arms to the sides in the "usual" way and perform the second "ideomotor" technique: mentally tune in to the reverse smooth movement of your hands - towards each other. Regardless of the result, repeat this technique 3-4 times. Between repetitions, if the reception does not work, do, as in the previous case, several familiar light warm-up movements, inhales and exhales.
4. Lowering your hands, mentally imagine that one of them floats up smoothly - remember how it happens with an astronaut in zero gravity. Then connect your other hand. If you perform these techniques while standing, then at the moment when your hands rise high enough at your request, inhale and exhale and relax. You will experience a pleasant feeling of inner lightness and flight.
5. After you have performed the "ideomotor" techniques - whether they worked or not - immediately sit down or lie down - right now the desired result comes: a feeling of relief, inner freedom. Let go of you. The stress is relieved. The head became clear. You experience freshness, vigor, fullness of strength.

Note. When performing key "ideomotor" techniques, especially while standing, relaxation is accompanied by spontaneous self-oscillation of the body. Rhythmic pleasant swaying is a natural relaxation response, it should not be restrained: "lie down" on these self-oscillations, as if on a wave. This is a good technique for training against motion sickness and for developing high coordination skills.

The key technique you have chosen - the one that was easiest to perform, you can then use separately, without completing the entire rehabilitation procedure. Naturally, the depth of relaxation will not be so complete, however, one technique will be quite enough to remove unwanted “nervous clamps” at the right moment, in a responsible situation, with one imperceptible short action, relieve nervous tension, quickly master self-control, and feel self-confidence.

B. How to increase resistance to stress

Anti-stress preparation

The training course, aimed at increasing resistance to stress and reducing fatigue, consists of 5 half-hour training sessions, performed at a convenient time for everyone, but the prevention course should be started not before, but after the working day.

Already after the 3rd or 4th lesson, skills are developed not only for relieving nervous overstrain, but also for effective mobilization, the ability to better control oneself in critical stressful situations and overcome great emotional, mental or physical stress with less damage to health increases.

For anti-stress training, the same key "ideomotor" techniques are used, but the arsenal of the course assumes a greater variety of them for a faster and more effective selection of an individual key.

"Ideomotor" techniques can be used not only to relieve nervous tension and relaxation, but also as a "tightness" test, with which you can always quickly check yourself for the degree of nervous tension.

The effectiveness of the course is provided by the additional inclusion of a special liberating exercise "Scanning", which helps the main "ideomotor" training, and the "ideomotor" training itself is used not only as techniques for relieving tension, relaxation or mobilization, but as a basic psychophysiological background for developing self-regulation skills.

Clamping test

When you need to assess your initial nervous tightness (the degree of stress), it is enough to use any of the three "ideomotor" techniques described above. For example, stand up and stretch your arms out in front of you, mentally imagine that your arms begin to smoothly spread out to the sides. If they do not obey your will, then the connection between the will and the body is broken by increased nervous tension. You should do some relaxing warm-up exercises.

Exercise "Scanning"

This exercise contains a special sequence of repeated, cyclical mechanical movements that allow you to identify the exact movement that is more suitable for your liberation.

1. For half a minute, do any repetitive circular turns of the head that are easy and pleasant for you.
2. Perform any repetitive movements of the shoulder girdle that are easy and pleasant for you for half a minute.
3. For half a minute, do any repetitive hip movements that are easy and pleasant for you, like rotating a hoop.
4. For half a minute, do any repetitive movements that are easy and pleasant for you at knee level.
5. Repeat the movement that seemed to you the easiest and most pleasant for half a minute. This is your key liberating movement. Perhaps you are familiar with it from everyday life – it is this movement that you involuntarily made in moments of nervous tension. Now you are doing it consciously.

C. Development of psychological stability

Performing "ideomotor" techniques from the section "How to relieve stress. Rehabilitation ”, follow two rules.

1. If the realization of the desired "ideomotor" movement is hindered by nervous tension, take a short breath in and out.
2. Once you have reached a state of relaxation, begin to develop stress-resilience skills. Imagine in your mind the image of a stressful stimulus that deprives you of self-confidence, knocks you out of a rut, and in relation to which you strive to increase your psychological stability (fear that you need to get rid of, anxiety before the upcoming exam, meeting with an unpleasant person, performance, competition, etc.). At the same time, watch the response of the body, which can manifest itself in the form of various “nervous” sensations (“cottony” legs, minor tremors, changes in breathing, heartbeat, etc.). Relieve stress with a short inhale-exhale, dissolve the unpleasant sensations that have arisen with the help of techniques convenient for you, physical exercises. Repeat this procedure 2-3 times.

Already after two or three repetitions of the exercise, the image of the stimulus ceases to cause an unwanted stress reaction of the body not only during training, but also in real life, your psychological stability has increased. In addition, you will notice that you become less tired and that you are much more successful in overcoming various stressful situations, and that you gain control of yourself faster.

(based on the materials of Zhavoronkov. Toolkit. Emergency Safety ABC. Based on materials from the book edited by A.I. Murovitsky. Don't panic.)