1. Learn about Ayurveda
Ayurveda (pronounced “i-your-vay-da”)
is an ancient science of living a long and healthy life, defying
disease and aging, and promoting well-being and good health through a
variety of practices. Ayurveda may be the oldest known health care
system, probably over 5,000 years old!
“In Ayurveda, stress equals imbalance.”
In Ayurveda, stress equals
imbalance. When the body isn’t balanced, pain, illness, injury,
disease, and psychological and emotional problems result. The theory of
Ayurveda is complex, but to simplify, it uses certain foods, herbs,
oils, colors, sounds, yoga exercises, cleansing rituals, chants,
lifestyle changes, and counseling to put the body and mind into the
ultimate state of health. It also has at its heart a very specific
philosophy that suggests disease and even the aging process can be
halted, even reversed, through certain practices.
2. Try Ayurvedic Therapy
The ayurvedic system divides people
(and everything else—weather, tastes, seasons, temperatures, and so on)
into three main dosha types. Many people are a combination of two or
even a balance of the three doshas, but most people lean toward one
dominant dosha. One’s dosha determines what kinds of foods, herbs, oils,
colors, sounds, yoga exercises, cleansing rituals, chants, lifestyle
changes, and counseling will be most beneficial.
An ayurvedic physician can
determine your dosha, sometimes through nothing more than feeling your
pulse. Typically, a rigorous and detailed analysis is made of a patient
who seeks ayurvedic therapy, including detailed questions covering
everything from physical makeup to habits, likes and dislikes, and
profession.
3. Know Thyself: Biofeedback
A biofeedback session
involves getting hooked up to equipment that measures certain bodily
functions such as your skin temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, and
muscle tension. A trained biofeedback counselor then guides the patient
through relaxation techniques while the patient watches the machine
monitors. When heart rate or breathing rate decreases, for example, you
can see it on the monitor. You learn how your body feels when your heart
and breathing rate decrease. Eventually, after a number of sessions,
you learn to lower your heart rate, breath rate, muscle tension,
temperature, and so on, on your own.
4. Get Creative
Creativity therapy is a general term
for using creativity on your own to help relieve your own stress. You
can write poetry, play the piano, even mold homemade playdough to help
relieve your own stress and express your creativity. When you become
immersed in creation, you can achieve a kind of intense, all-consuming
focus similar to the intense focus and concentration you can achieve
through a meditation practice. Allowing yourself to become one with your
creation—your painting, your drawing, your poem, your short story, your
journal entry, your sculpture, your music—helps you to let go of the
stresses in your life.
5. Give Creativity Therapy a Try
Set aside thirty to sixty minutes
each day. Choose your creative outlet. Maybe you will write in your
journal, practice the cello, paint with watercolors, or dance to
classical music. Then, sit down in a quiet place where you are unlikely
to be disturbed, and start creating.
Try not to look at your
creations or analyze your own performance, at least not carefully, until
you’ve practiced creative therapy for one month. When the month is
over, look carefully at what you’ve accomplished. Words and images that
recur in writing or painting or drawing are your personal themes.
Movements or sounds can also have meaning for you, personally, if you
are dancing or playing music. Spend some time meditating on what they
could mean for you.
6. Follow These Helpful Tips
Here are some tips to remember when engaged in your creativity therapy:
• As you work, don’t stop. Write or draw continuously. If you stop, you’ll be more likely to judge your work.
• Don’t judge your work!
• Promise yourself you won’t read
what you wrote or survey what you drew until the session is over.
Otherwise, you’re likely to start judging.
• Don’t be critical or disappointed in what you come up with. There is no wrong way to do this, unless you are judging yourself.
• Feeling stuck? Just start
writing or drawing without any thought or plan, even if you end up
writing “I don’t know what to write” for three pages or drawing a page
full of stick figures. Eventually, you’ll get tired of that and
something else will come out.
• Commit to the process. Even if
it seems like it isn’t working at first, thirty minutes (or just ten to
fifteen minutes when you first try it) each and every day will yield
results if you stick with it.
• Don’t think you can’t do creative therapy because you “aren’t creative.”
• Everyone is creative. Some people just haven’t developed their creativity as much as others.
7. Learn about Dream Journaling
While “the stuff that dreams are made
of” is still a matter of some controversy, many people believe that
dreams tap the subconscious mind’s hopes, fears, goals, worries, and
desires.
Dream journaling is a way to begin
keeping track of the images, themes, motifs, and emotions in your
dreams. Because it helps you to work on your own mind and train your
mind to dream in a way that benefits you, dream journaling is a good
stress management tool. Its mental training helps the mind to become
more stress resilient.
