Relieve Your Stress

The holiday season, end of the year, or school finals can all create stress. Stress always seems to increase at this time of the year. The book, Tao of No Stress, by Stuart Alve Olson (Inner Traditions, 2002)discusses three healthy paths for eliminating stress. The author's Taoist teacher loved to say, "Health is the utmost importance; everything else is secondary."

Here are his three paths for eliminating stress:

THE FIRST PATH - Releasing Stress
Acquire a mind-set that allows for the release of your self-trained responses to stressful situations. As you begin to pay attention to releasing stress, it should become clear that responses to stress are often habitual.

THE SECOND PATH - Massaging Stress Away
Learn how to pay attention to yourself in a positive manner rather than a negative manner in which you focus on only the negative effects of your experience of being stressed. This process is very simple, as it is accomplished by massaging and pressing certain areas of the body to alleviate the negative physical effects of stress.

THE THIRD PATH - Breathing Stress Away
Learn how to breathe stress away. Breathing is the most important bodily function we have; it directly affects the circulation of the blood and our central nervous system. In Taoist spiritual cultivation nothing plays a bigger role than the discipline and practice of breathing methods.

Try one or all of these tree paths to eliminate your stress and enjoy life more.