Antidote to stress: Practical tips to find balance in your life

Whether it’s yoga, tantra or Zen, all eastern ideologies highlight the importance of balance. If you live in a big city like Dubai, most of your time is eaten up by your work. So, when you rank your work life over everything else, it can impact you severely.

This lack of balance is also a sureshot formula to experience stress. Stress is a normal reaction to unfavourable situations and it is part of life. But stress becomes an issue when it turns chronic, and when you get fixated on a stress reaction, you find yourself trapped in repetitive patterns.

Simplifying stress

Stress is never ‘only in your head’. The feeling of being stressed involves physiological changes that will trigger the adrenal glands to release hormones like adrenaline and noradrenaline, which place the body on high alert to either confront the threat (“fight”) or leave as quickly as possible (“flight”).

While the fight-or-flight response is a protection mechanism, you might have unnecessary response to something that is not dangerous at all. This is when stress becomes a problem as your response is overly sensitive

You might experience stress or this tightness in one of these ways:

•Mentally— constant repetitive thoughts or distraction

•Emotionally — getting upset or feeling unwholesome emotions

•Physically — tightness in muscles and body pain (lower back or neck)

•Energetically — sensations of agitation and lack of contentment

Create balance to counter stress

A great antidote to stress is balance. Balance is important in every aspect of our lives —health, relationships, diet, work life, etc. The Yogic word “Hatha” (which could mean “balanced path”) is a portmanteau of “Ha” representing the sun or the masculine within us and “Tha” representing the moon or the feminine within us.

We all know that solar energy is essential in the daytime, to take action, to be active and to interact with people and the world. Lunar energy is what we need naturally to rest, recover and sleep. To rejuvenate and to take time out to digest, think and contemplate.

The goal thus of yoga (and Hatha Yoga) is to create this balance in our lives.

Here are some practical tips to find balance.

1.Balanced diet: As long as you eat healthy mostly, it’s okay to indulge once in a while. Take care and nurture yourself.

2.Balanced movement: Find exercise that you enjoy and find a frequency that works for you.

3.Balanced sleep: Find out how many hours of quality sleep you need to function with vitality

4.Balanced company: Spend time with emotionally balanced people, expanding your awareness. Consciously avoid people who add stress to your life.

5.Balanced mindset: Don’t be too rigid on any opinion but still openly express your emotions.

6.Balanced digital life: The most impactful thing you can do is measure the time you spend on social media and the digital world. Balance this with enough real-world interactions and nature time.

7.Balanced relaxation: You don’t have to keep working, hustling and be productive always. Learn to just chill sometimes. Schedule time in your calendar for rest and fun.

8.Balanced expectations: Maintain a positive mindset — eventually things always work out. Expect the unexpected and know that it’s okay to not get everything done.

9.Balanced priorities: Know when to say no and be clear on your boundaries.

10.Balanced focus: It’s okay to have ambition but balance it out by focusing on the here and now.

Training the art of maintaining balance of life takes time. The secret is to keep finding ways to improve your mental wellness. Don’t wait till you reach a breaking point, instead balance it out now and take a break to avoid burnout from stress.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai