Stress Management and Relaxation Techniques

Archive for August, 2009

Yet another tedious sleep disorder is snoring. As it is found very commonly, we never believe it to be a sleep disorder.Many of us even believe it to be a habit of certain personalities but snoring in fact is a serious sleep disorder. Snoring is a sound created due to some blockage found in the airway. The victims nose or the mouth can be the source for the sound creation. The blockage can either be created in the nose or in throat due to which the sound is produced. It is true that very often snoring is considered to be a habit or many a times it becomes a topic of an entertaining evening when a snoring friend is around.

But all of us should understand that snoring is a condition that should not be left untreated. Consider it to be a serious issue; snoring can be treated in a number of ways. If a person has a silent sleep it means that he is free from any blockage in the throat or mouth. The sound is usually produced by a thin soft palate or the base of one’s tongue that falls before the throat’s air channel blocking the air. This tissue or soft palate creates sound by striking against the walls of the throat and nose. Reactivity towards snoring should not be lethargic as in many cases it is considered to be a symptom of many sleep disorders like Acromegaly, Marfan syndrome and Obstructive sleep apnea.

Snoring can be preventative in its initial stage. Regular exercise and weight loss greatly contributes to the prevention of snoring. An immediate effect can be experienced when slept on the sides rather than on the back.

Thyroids and tumors are also suspected to contribute to snoring. A long uvula or a soft palate worsens the condition as they flutter when the air passes through. Snoring can even be noticed in normal human beings who never snore during winter or a fever season. This is resulted as a blockage in the nose due to cold. In such a condition, the respiratory system struggles to inhale air. In the process, a vacuum is created in the throat area which makes
the uvula, tonsil and the palate vibrate.

Snoring should not be considered as something funny as it is a cyclic condition that leads to a variety of health problems. It not only deprives the snorer of sleep but also causes sleep deprivation among their sleep partners. Sleep deprivation in turn causes daytime sleepiness, low energy, laziness, low productivity, poor mental health, off mood and slow reactivity to things.

Stress management in life usually requires changes in the way you think. For people going through too much stress, maintaining a positive attitude can do a lot in helping deal with very difficult and trying circumstances. One way of trying to maintain a positive mindset is by using positive affirmations to influence the subconscious mind into thinking positive. Doing so would likely boost up one’s ability to handle and deal with stress.

Positive affirmation is a good way to try and change a mind accustomed to a negative thought process into a positive one. Every word that a person says and every thought made is an affirmation. Each affirmation conditions the mind and one’s way of thinking and acting. By carefully rethinking every affirmation into positive ones, a person can try to influence his or her mindset on the subconscious level to become positive.

Positive affirmations can greatly affect the way a person thinks. It is all made through the inner dialogue and self-talk that a person does to himself or herself. People go through a lot of self-talk for a variety of reasons. They want to affirm a certain idea to stick in their minds. Inner dialogue can help condition the mind to rethinking its beliefs. Self-talk can actually influence a person’s behavior and actions.

With this in mind, using positive affirmations largely consists of using self-talk and dialogue. Simply making positive statements and repeating it over and over again in one’s mind can be a way to influence one’s own thinking and life. By repeating positive affirmations over and over again, they will eventually seep into a person’s mindset, influence it and eventually determine how he or she would react to certain circumstances.

Using positive affirmations can actually help influence even a negative mindset. At first people who may use positive affirmations would think that it goes against their own set of beliefs and inner truths based on the inappropriate impressions that formed in their mind as they grow up. By using positive affirmations, the mind can gradually be taught or influenced to rethink its inner set of beliefs for a more positive one.

For a negative mindset, positive affirmations can be used as short positive statements that can be used to challenge an established but inappropriate set of beliefs. In can be compared to self-brainwashing, but the person has the option to choose which negative beliefs to replace. Using positive affirmations forces the mind to keep focused on positive truths that eventually will be accepted by the mind as its own. This would then later on affect a person’s behavior and actions.

Different people may need to use different positive affirmations in their lives. This would depend on their own situations and their levels of stress management. Developing a certain positive affirmation to live by would require looking into what one intends to develop and achieve in life. This requires further assessment and evaluation of one’s life to discover what things he or she considers as important and what end result he wishes to achieve.

Once an idea of what to strive and aim for is found, then one can be able to formulate a statement that would help condition your mind to reach for it. It can be a single or a few chosen statements. These statements should reflect the kind of reality that one wishes to create. The positive statements are then repeated through self talk regularly in order to reinforce it in the mind.

It would slowly seep in and eventually be accepted by the mind as its own truth.