When it comes to stress coping strategies, Lavender is my favorite essential oil. Aromatherapy is a very effective way to reduce stress – here’s why.
Have you ever caught a whiff of perfume on a breeze and suddenly been filled with memories of another time or place?
Aromas have the power to evoke distant memories of people and places because of all our senses, the sense of smell is most strongly linked to the subconscious. Scents are capable of producing immediate, intense responses because they are processed by the part of the brain that controls memory and emotion.
Just a quick whiff of lovely Lavender calms nerves, quiets anxiety and promotes relaxation. Heck, even visualizing fields of waving lavender flowers will reduce stress!
Not only is Lavender a beautiful flower used in a wide variety of products like soaps and lotions, it’s unique flavor makes it a popular addition to chocolate, cookies and jams. It’s also one of two essential oils that can be applied directly to the skin, without first being mixed into a carrier oil. I often use it as perfume, dabbing it on my wrists, behind ears and under my nose so I continuously breathe in all it’s goodness.
Lavender is so gentle you can add a drop to a baby’s bath to calm them and help them (and you!) sleep longer. For a soothing, relaxing bath, try adding eight drops of Lavender oil to a full tub, or four drops a foot bath. Spraying essential oil mixed with water adds a pleasant fragrance to the room as well as calming the nerves and promoting a sense of well-being in everyone in it.
You also may want to keep stress at bay by sleeping with a ‘dream pillow’ filled with dried lavender. Dabbing lavender on the soles of your feet will also promote deep restful sleep.
Give lavender a try, and it’s sure to become one of your ‘go to’ stress coping strategies! And if you enjoyed this excerpt from Relief Beyond Belief; Exploring the World of Natural Healing, you’ll love the book – check it out here, I have created a special package for you! This value package includes a 150 page illustrated e-book exploring 29 therapies – from Acupressure to Yoga, downloadable videos with 22 Master Healer Interviews – 11 hours of healing you won’t find anywhere else – and a Guided Chakra Meditation MP3, even a coaching session with me! Regularly $97, now just $24.97!
It may seem strange to title a holistic stress relief article, ‘life is meaningless’. Don’t worry, I haven’t given up on life, nor do I recommend you do so. But the truth is, life IS meaningless. All events and circumstances are neutral. The simply ARE. It’s our perception that make them appear good, bad or otherwise. Perception is everything – and fortunately, is completely under our control. So a statement that started out sounding pessimistic becomes the opposite. The fact that life is meaningless is a great gift! You can look out the window at grey skies and decide it’s going to be a horrible waste of a day. Or you could be pleased that the flowers will get a drink and save you watering! A traffic gridlock could seem like the most frustrating thing ever, or it could give you time to listen to an uplifting audio, or mentally review all the other things in your life you’re grateful for! A surefire holistic stress relief technique is to stop sweating what you have no control over – things like the weather, traffic, and other people’s moods. Put the focus back on the most important factor in your life – your personal state of mind. Because believe it or not, you have control over your thoughts. Only you. It doesn’t matter if all those around you are in the ‘this sucks’ camp – as long as you don’t buy into it, you can keep your thoughts and spirits uplifted. You may be wondering, ‘why bother’ right about now. It’s important to always remember that we get what we vibrate. You can always turn your thoughts around, but it’s so much easier to do as soon as you notice they’re headed on a downward spiral. To turn it around, find a way – any way – to feel more positive about the subject at hand. If good weather happens to be especially important to you on a particular day, and the weather isn’t cooperating, take baby steps to turn your mood sunny. Look for the silver lining in those storm clouds! There’s bound to be something – after all, when you’re focused on finding something positive, the Law of Attraction must bring it. It is LAW. Learn about other holistic stress relief techniques, such as meditation and affirmations, with my ebook and expert interview video series,Relief Beyond Belief; Exploring the World of Natural Healing. This value package includes a 150 page illustrated e-book exploring 29 therapies – from Acupressure to Yoga, downloadable videos with 22 Master Healer Interviews – 11 hours of healing you won’t find anywhere else – and a Guided Chakra Meditation MP3, and a coaching session with me! Regularly $97, now just $24.97! In Light, Alexandria
One of the best stress relief activities is to look within, rather than pointing fingers at other people. I hope you enjoy this video that gives a quick overview of why what you say about others is true about you! This may be a hard concept to grasp, but when you think about it, it’s one of the best stress relief activities you can do. This way, you won’t expect others to change so you can be happy – you take responsibility for what you think and say, and the stress melts away! Discover more life-enhancing techniques at Wishful Thanking In this transformational online video course you will:
Master the art of manifestation, step by step, and tap into your abilities as a creator
Meet your chakras and learn to unleash their power to create success in every life area
Erase your limiting beliefs and create the limitless life you desire
Use customized action steps for permanent change
Bring your greatest desires into reality
Discover the unlimited possibilities that unfold as you release blockages and limiting beliefs.
When you apply the Wishful Thanking system of manifesting, you’ll experience changes beyond your wildest expectations.
It can take years of study to find the techniques that really get results – a long, frustrating process. In most cases, people give up, feeling more miserable then when they started. Now you can skip all that and go directly to success! Try this and let me know how it works for you! Love & Light Alexandria
My top 3 tips to cultivate gratitude will help you feel better fast! Gratitude has been called the most spiritual of all the emotions. It’s also one of the most powerful habits you can cultivate to help create a prosperous fulfilling life! When you feel gratitude, you can’t be angry or afraid. These emotions simply cannot inhabit your body at the same time. Feeling gratitude and appreciation puts you in a high-flying vibration that draws other wonderful things to you to be grateful for! Cultivating an attitude of gratitude is as simple and basic as counting your blessings. There are may ways to incorporate this beautiful, powerful feeling into your life – here are my top 3 tips to do it: 1) Gratitude Lists Writing gratitude lists is simply counting your blessings and writing them down! It’s great to have a special journal for this, then whenever you need a lift, you need only review your book to be reminded of all the good things in your life! I recommend you write 5 items before bed. This sets you up for success, because your sub-conscious will keep processing these thoughts as you sleep, and you’ll wake up in a more positive state of mind. Then, in the morning, write 5 more things you’re grateful for. Spend a moment thinking about each one, dwell in those beautiful feelings. This sets a powerfully positive tone for your day, and because you know you’ll need 5 more positive things to write that night, you’ll subconsciously be on the look-out for more things to be grateful for all day. 2) Gratitude Walks As you begin your day, say “thank” with one foot and “you” with the other. Thank you is a beautiful powerful mantra! And by actively choosing this as your ‘go to” thought, you’re taking control of your thought processes, leaving less room for negative habitual thoughts. Taking a walk in nature is the perfect time and place for a gratitude walk, which is also like a moving meditation. Simply focus on gratitude, either repeating the thank-you mantra, or by focusing on things you’re grateful for, like green grass, sunshine, birds singing, and being able to walk. Not only will you be burning calories and building muscle, you’ll be developing your gratitude muscle, paving the way for even better things to come your way! 3) Speaking Gratitude It’s all to easy to do these practices, then slip back into familiar internal and external dialogue about things you don’t like — about the government, neighbors, your body, your boss. With a little practice you’ll find it easy to turn that around. Just say the opposite, find something good in all situations. It’s always there, though you may have to dig a bit. The more you make the effort, the easier it gets to be positive even if those around you are not. Put these principles into practice, and you’ll see your life get better and better. Try and see! For more practical stress solutions, please visit my Wishful Thanking page.
The best stress relief activities work better when you don’t have ANTs (automatic negative thoughts). So how do you get rid of them? Squash them like a bug! But ANTS, like the pests they’re named for, are tricky buggers; sneaky, good hiders, and persistent as all get out. The first step in getting rid of them is to identify them. This can be tricky, they have a way of crawling around in our minds without our even noticing they’re there. They blend in, becoming part of the landscape of our minds.
I have some good news though. I’m about to share a quick simple way to free yourself of ANTs once and for all! (more…)
Affirmations are the best stress relief activities!
Affirmations are very powerful tools for bringing about the kind of life you want. They also are best stress relief activities. However, they have an evil twin – what I call the dark side of affirmations. Basically, affirmations are thoughts you choose to think because you want the results they’ll produce. Created correctly, using positive, powerful words in the present tense repeated often, they produce the effects you want by convincing your subconscious mind the conditions they describe are in fact real. For example, let’s say you’re stressed about money. You need financial stress relief activities. You know everything begins as a thought, you want to create more wealth in your life, so a positive affirmation would be, “Money now flows to me freely from all directions,” or “I am now rich beyond my wildest dreams,” or “I am wealth. I am abundance. I am prosperity.” (more…)
