3 Ways to Combat Stress

Stress happens. These three tips can help.

Transcript

Aryavan (Bryan) McSweeny

Meditation to Calm the Mind from Stress

Hi, I'm Bryan, and this video will give you three ways for you to combat stress.

Tip 1: Breath

My first tip for you is one of the most important things in combating stress. And that is the breath. Most people in society today don't breathe enough. We're afraid everyone's going to find out that we're fat. And so we keep our stomachs all pulled in. But if we're able to just breathe deeply, all the way down, expanding the ribcage, breathe deeply in, breathe deeply out. If you keep breathing deeply, for first a minute, and then two and five, you'll see that you gradually feel the stress just melt away, and you get a taste of the piece that's in all of us.

Tip 2: Perspective

The second tip I'd like to give you is perspective. We get so caught up in our day-to-day lives. We think everything is so real and everything is so close to us. But if we can just take a step back, we realize that things aren't as bad as we thought they were. My teacher, Swami Kriyananda, used to say, "Imagine the worst thing that could happen to you, and then imagine yourself there. And if you can get past that, you can expand through anything." So remember, always keep a little perspective.

(Listener Comment) That's cool.

Tip 3: Stay Positive

My third tip for you is to stay positive. When we're in the thick of it, stress seems like it's the only thing in our lives. But if we stop and count our blessings, we'll see that there are many, many things to be thankful for. And then we concentrate on those things. The other thing that seemed to fall by the wayside, we start to see that life isn't actually so bad and that we're going to get through this.

I hope you found this video helpful and are able to use these techniques in your own life.