Articles on Stress Management

Visual Journals To Lower Stress And Heal The Mind

The power of art to transform people’s lives is well known. Art has been used as a breakthrough technique to reach a patient’s deepest fears, and their most closely guarded emotions. By representing emotions wordlessly, a barrier is lowered, allowing patients to express things that they cannot bring themselves to say, either due to the pain it would evoke, or because of shame. Visual journals are the latest way for those undergoing addiction or psychiatric treatment to find a route through their pain, and here we look at the way these journals can be used to combat stress.

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Date Posted: May 13, 2013

Categories: Stress Management

How nature's beauty can restore yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually

Over 200 years ago, William Wordsworth alluded to the idea that nature has the power to restore our weary hearts and minds. In his poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798”, he eloquently describes how the beauty of nature can provides us with tranquil restoration.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration.

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Date Posted: May 4, 2012

Categories: Spirituality, Stress Management

Benefits of Meditation and How to easily start Meditating

What is meditation? Does practicing meditation daily really bring some benefits? How does one meditate?

My own experience with meditation began in the 70’s with the practice of transcendental meditation (TM), followed by Benson’s non-religious version of TM aimed at stress reduction (Benson, H., 1975), a tiny bit of Taoist meditation, and finally mindfulness meditation as advocated by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Kabat-Zinn, J., 1990). Mindfulness meditation is used increasingly by psychologists not so much for relaxation but for coping with difficult thoughts and feelings. In this post I will focus on Benson’s technique for meditating because it is a very simple introduction to meditation.

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Date Posted: October 3, 2011

Categories: Mindfulness Meditation, Relaxation techniques, Stress Management