Austin Meditation

Posts Tagged ‘Myocardial infarction’

Feeling stressed? Well that stress could be making you unhealthy. You may be stressed over taxes or how you’re going to make this month’s mortgage; whatever it is it can lead to health problems. Not only does stress make us feel icky emotionally, but can exacerbate any underlying health conditions you may have.

Many studies indicate that some health issues are related to stress. For example, obesity, heart disease and diabetes among others can increase or worsen due to stress. However, don’t get stressed out too much about this because here are a few things you can do to help lower your stress and your risk for health problems.

Stress management programs and techniques are a huge help. Studies have shown that people who survived a heart attack and enrolled in stress management programs reduced the risk of a second attack by nearly 74 percent. And there are also indicators that these programs can reduce the possibility of a first heart attack.

A few minutes of breathing deeply can relieve stress as well as bringing you to a more calm state. Try to find a few times a day to just breathe and relax. You can also try relaxing individual muscles groups while doing this breathing exercise for added stress relief.

Stay focused in the here and now. Paying too much attention to what may be coming in the future or even what has happened in the past can cause stress.

Don’t get worked up, just look at the situation differently — with a different perspective, hopefully a positive one.

Think about things that you are grateful for. It seems simplistic, but it can bring you back to an even keel and lower stress. Think about happy times with friends and family, or your favorite place to visit.

Heart attacks and strokes happen way too often to way too many people. There are so many in our society today that are at a great risk of having a debilitating heart attack or stroke. So we may ask ourselves, why is this happening so often and to so many out there these days? Well, it is due to the fact that a majority of people have put aside living a well-balanced lifestyle by doing simple things like eating a healthy diet, being active and exercising regularly, and taking the time to really de-stress from their crazy and busy lives.

Adding to the stress in our lives are things like the average workday hours significantly increasing and growing demands and expectations being places on each of us at both home. And those are just the outside forces affecting our bodies negatively. There are also the habits that we engage in that add even more risks such as smoking, excess drinking and the use of illegal drugs. What happens is that through the combination of the external and internal things we are subjected to damages our overall well being.

So, what can we do to bring back the overall well being and peaceful balance in our lives? Outside of bettering our eating habits and exercising on a regular basis, we can learn basic techniques and methods of meditation to help us relax and reduce the stress our bodies are harboring.

Some may be leery of doing meditation because of fear of the unknown or because they have never done it before. Don’t worry — it’s not about learning unusual oriental chants or surrounding yourself with tons of burning incense in a strange atmosphere. It’s about isolating yourself from all the tension around you and learning techniques of relaxation to help you bring a sense of peace back into your life. Find a place nearby that can teach you the proper techniques or check out some books from your local library and start down the path or de-stressing and thus helping you to decrease your risk of having a heart attack and stroke.