Stress Relief and Relaxation Techniques for Those Living with Illness or Chronic Pain

I thought I would share the Relaxation Techniques that I have learned, in hope that they will help some of you. Relaxation can help lower blood pressure, promote a feeling of wellness, and hopefully can help bring on a restful sleep.

If there is one thing that I have noticed, it's that stress plays such a huge part in everybody's lives. When you're stressed it can affect your mind, your body and most importantly your health. You can't sleep at night, because your mind is racing with everything you are worried about, everything that happened that day, or the bills you are struggling with.

As everyone with an illness knows, anything that already impacts on our much needed sleep, makes us feel Ill for a long time to come, keeps flares going for weeks, and makes life extremely miserable.

There are many different techniques and not everyone will work as well for you as others- it's a case of trying each one until you find one that makes you feel the most relaxed. It also helps if you can have some alone time, maybe if you have kids they could be in bed or at school. If you happen to doze off to sleep, then you can be satisfied that you found a technique that works well for you.

The key to ALL of these techniques, is to be in a quiet comfy place where you can lie down, and concentrate on slowing the rate of your breathing.So breathe in slowly to a count of 5 and then back out again for another count of 5.

What worked best for me was to imagine a place where I felt most at peace- like a beach, the hot sun, the lapping of the waves, the seagulls and the wind gently blowing a cool breeze over me. For you it might be a meadow, a mountain or a waterfall, it doesn't matter where it is, as long as you find it peaceful and can imagine it in detail.