The Power of Relaxation
The world we are living in is running faster and faster. As human beings, sometimes we can't just walk at the same pace as how the world runs. All the things are developing, basic needs are increasing, and new inventions are coming. Somehow, we are forced to be part of this high-speed development while we forget that humans have limitations. This force has created some negative feelings for us, such as fear, anxiety, et cetera. With this condition, our emotions are likely to fluctuate.
Humanity in the modern era often faces uncomfortable and unproductive situations that are hard to manage (re: burnout). Burnout often happens when our body and mind are at their peak capacity to receive all the information that is always moving quickly. At this point, we might feel depressed, anxious, and less motivated. The stress of burnout is not only affecting our psychology and productivity. Stressing for a long time might affect our bodies as well. It causes a different act of our blood circulation, immune system, and many more.
The feeling of stress and burnout can happen to anyone. It could happen to children until adults, and it should be easier for adults to cope with this situation because they better understand themselves and their surroundings. In this unfortunate situation, adults tend to start looking for the solution, which is highly necessary. This burnout situation has the snowball effect that possibly keeps getting worse day by day if we are not looking for the solution as soon as we can. Finding the answer to our burnout seems not as easy as it looks. Somehow, we prefer the burnout-escape method that significantly affects our minds and bodies without consuming too much time. We need the practical, spiritual, and self-oriented solution to cure our burnout. The one that does not merely make us feel better or blocking our mind from negativity in a short moment but also has the long-term effect of inspiration and creativity.
THE KEY OF BEING RELAX
The problem is that there are many stress-escape methods, and we don't know which one is the most suitable for us. We always look for many forms of entertainment and try all services, but we sometimes forget the fundamental keyword of all solutions. BEING RELAX.
Instead of struggling on google keywords of 'burnout escape' or 'how to get away from stress and depression,' why don't we start thinking about relaxing.
How to relax? What is the benefit of relaxing? And the most important thing is, why don't we try to connect to our body and mind firmly? Have a better understanding of what is happening to our body and mind when stressed or relaxed.
Let's not think about the short term only. The long-term effect of relaxing is to create a mindful intention that will guide us into creativity. The result of relaxing is a mind and body healing that works as stress relief.
Now the question is, when should we practice relaxing? To answer that question, we can pretty much say ANYTIME. We don't have to sit with crossed legs and stay in the yoga position to be relaxed. Relaxing is about our mind, and then our body will follow too. Our mind has a great power to affect our body. Once we can manage our minds, our bodies wouldn't have any difficulties supporting our brains and lives. We will have better well-being, better sleep quality, and those impacts will guide us to better productivity.
Like what we have discussed before, yes, we can be relaxed at any time. Even though, we need to realize that it's different between relaxing and being unproductive. We still can be relaxed while working, while exercising, while doing every activity in our life. Many people think that relaxing means doing nothing but the truth is 'Relax is about our mind'. How do we react to something, how do we face the problem, how do we entertain ourselves? In fact, we can do all kinds of activities more effectively if we have a relaxing mind.
Some of us just haven't realized yet what other thing that a relaxed mind offers to us. A relaxed mind would give us healing power and make us disconnect from the negativity. Just keep in mind that the aim of being relaxed is not merely to escape from burnout but to enjoy the work, enjoy our little stress, and enjoy our upcoming deadline. Our daily tasks are still the same with the same amount, but we will feel a massive difference if we do it with an anxious or relaxing mind. Of course, it doesn't mean we suddenly have a relaxed mind right after reading this. It takes time and practice for us to finally understand how our mind works, how to relax, and then emerge the inner power that we all have inside our brains. At least, we are trying to train our minds step by step to transform our life into a better mindset.
Incorporating a relaxed mind and a productive body is an effective way to keep productive without sacrificing our mental health. With this incorporation, we can reduce our stress just by understanding how the mind works.
Now, we all agree that a relaxing mind is one way to cure stress. It means that there is a fundamental connection between relaxation and subjective well-being. The study shows that adults were likely to experience relaxation when engaged in personal activities and passive leisure and that relaxation was positively related to feelings of happiness, cheerfulness, and sociability. And we ensure you will experience all of that feeling after a massage session with TBM Bali.
PRACTICING RELAXED MIND
Somehow, it will be a little bit hard to train our mind, so that we need another external stimulant to give our brain a signal to relax. The easiest stimulant is doing a relaxing activity that can trigger your brain to work relaxingly. The most famous relaxing activities are listening to music or go for a massage.
TRY WITH SOME MUSIC
No, we are not talking about the sound of rain, a traditional instrument, or a classical melody. A lot of scientific research stated that those kinds of music would make us relax, but that doesn't mean that we have to limit ourselves to any specific type of music. Start with exploring any music. It could be nature sound, ancient tradition, modern, or even contemporary. Try any genre of music and do not even bother to explore more in the different eras as long as it comforts us. It's highly recommended to put some special music for stress relief in a particular playlist. Let's try to listen to the playlist ONLY when we feel down. Do not ever listen to that playlist when we are feeling fine. Why? Because when we listen to that playlist only when we feel unmotivated, it will stimulate our brain to give the signal that we are not fine. So when we hear that playlist, our brain will automatically realize that we are in a situation that needs help, and then they will release some hormones to make us relax.
For some people, the music itself is a meditation. It will arouse our enthusiasm, relax our emotions, and then develop the comfortable trend of humanized medicine. It's so complex if we are talking about creating or producing music. There are a lot of things behind the relaxing music. But miraculously, people can easily understand the music and feel the relaxing effect of the music even with all of those complexities.
Relaxing might be challenging, especially when we have a lot of thought in our minds, but music can help. There is a significant difference when we try to relax with or without music. With music intervention, the reduction process of anxiety and any tension will run very well, which makes us easier to relax. Music is also one of the ways to have a better mental health condition. It helps relieve pain, increase mood, and stabilize emotion. Music has been one of the methods to assist many rehabilitations and therapies regarding mental health.
Ok, but why do I still find it hard to relax, even with music? It is totally fine. It's important to understand that everyone has different responses to handle stress and adapt to uncomfortable situations. So, keep exploring ourselves, and then we will find the best way to relax.
THE TRIO OF RELAXATION (MUSIC + MASSAGE + GOOD FOOD)
This trio combination is a famous way to relax, and it's our favorite one so far. After we know what kind of music relaxes our minds, let's try to listen to it with an extra relaxing activity, such as a good massage. A good massage provides the body with relaxation to relieve pain, tension, and muscle tightness from everyday activities. Massage has been one therapy to alleviate stiffness, cure sore joints and muscles and improve blood circulation. Mentally, it also promotes relaxation.
A good massage should be included in our weekly schedule if we want to have a productive yet relaxing lifestyle. If going to a spa seems difficult, outcall massage service is the best option to try. To provide this service, TBM Bali can help you to have a massage treatment experience with professional massage service at your place. Whether you are living in Apartment, Private House, Hotel or Villa around Seminyak, Kuta, Legian, Canggu, Nusa Dua, Uluwatu, Ubud or Sanur areas, our beautiful therapists will always ready travel to you.
Our journey to have an outstanding relaxing experience is not finished yet. Let's have a beautiful closing with some decent food. These foods will help us reach our relaxing feeling. Thankfully, several kinds of easy-to-find food that improve our relaxation hormones can be easily found in our pantry. It could be our favorite sweets until some spices to give the warming effect of our body.
Let's start our relaxing food journey with turkey. You might be surprised that turkeys contain tryptophan, a primer amino acid that gives a relaxing effect to our bodies. That is why sometimes we feel sleepy right after thanksgiving dinner. Eating turkey after a relaxing massage will help us improve our sleep quality and guide us to a night of deep relaxing sleep.
Continue to get some spices. Nutmeg is the answer to get a relaxing mind. This spice is popular, especially during the fall or winter. We can include it into our pie, work as a sprinkle in our drink, or be added to our dough when we do some bakes. Nutmeg has some ability to lower blood pressure and relax our blood vessels. It also affects our mood in a positive way which guides us to a better productive life.
Did we talk about adding some nutmeg into our drink? Now, let's talk about the drink that we need to try for a better relaxing mind. If we look back into when our ancestors live, they have a bedtime ritual of drinking an herbal tonic, like ginger lemon tea. They believe (and we should, too) that herbal ginger and lemon tea will give us shooting and relaxing bedtime. Just like the name, this tea is an infusion of ginger and lemon. Just two ingredients that we can easily find in our kitchen. We can also add some honey or sugar (but better honey) if we want it sweet. The good thing is, this tea relaxes your mind but does not directly bring us to sleep so that we can drink it almost every time, even in the morning before we start our activity.
Ginger (Zingiber officinale) has been used in some folk and alternative medication methods that work to delay our empty stomachs. At the same time, lemon (Citrus limon) contains acid that helps our digestive system. It will give us a comfortable feeling after our meal and ease the weird feeling of fullness, nausea, and stress. We will feel more relaxed right after we drink this tea. Even we can already feel ginger and lemon's relaxing effect just by smelling the odor.
Unlike the caffeinated tea tree drink that dehydrates our body, ginger lemon tea works the opposite way. This tea will refresh and hydrate our bodies. That is why many spa companies will provide ginger or lemon infusion drink right after the session. It's because when we have a massage treatment, we are more likely to lose some fluid. And it has been discussed in a lot of scientific research that ginger and lemon drinks will help the recovery of dehydration. Being hydrated is essential to maintain our vital organs like kidneys, heart, and gut operate properly. So it’s highly recommended to drink this tea regularly.
Of course, the effect of being hydrated will gradually guide us into relaxation and mindfulness. Give ourselves a cup of ginger lemon tea, and start having a self-reflection. This mindfulness practice does not merely give us relaxation but also boosts our immune health system. We will have better responses and better emotional control toward negative feelings like stress, anxiety, and fear.
At last, we can conclude that relaxation has a great power to control our life, our feeling, and emotion. It brings us into a better lifestyle and productivity. We can start exploring our relaxation journey from now on and get ready for a new productive life.