|
||
At every opportunity throughout this book I have talked about how incredible massage can be in the management of stress. Approximately one Âthird of absences from work can be attributed to the effects of stress, anxiety, and depression, so it is in everybody's interest to deal with stress as quickly as possible. However, not all stress is bad since we need a certain amount to give our lives zest and excitement. Its only when demands made on us become too great that we suffer the negative aspects of stress and then seem unable to cope.
There is a strong link between stress and illness: it affects the immune system, making people more vulnerable to infection; it is related to high blood pressure and heart disease; it can cause headaches and backache; and there are even suggestions that there may be a link with cancer, due to the effects of stress on the immune system. So by relieving stress not only will you feel better, but you are also reducing your chances of developing other problems in the future.
Massage for stress-related problems
The best way of relieving stress, anxiety, and depression is with a full body massage. This will induce a sense of relaxation, and relaxing is the thing that most stressed people find impossible to do. You should concentrate on the areas your partner likes best. Keep the massage as flowing and rhythmic as possible, since that will sweep away the tension that is causing the physical problems.
To enhance the relaxing effects of the massage, try adding a calming essential oil to your massage oil. You may also try using the oils in a relaxing bath as well.
Stress-induced insomnia
Insomnia often occurs as a result of stress, and massage can help you break the vicious cycle of tiredness and inability to sleep. Give the massage regularly at bedtime until you have broken the habit. Your partner should lie on a bed so that if he or she succumbs to sleep during the massage you can leave him or her happily dozing. Ideally, you should do a complete body, face, and head massage, which takes about 1 1/2 hours.
If you don't have much time, you will get the quickest results by concentrating on the back, abdomen, feet, and face. You can massage all four areas in any order, or just one, depending on how quickly your partner relaxes. Follow a basic back massage routine but avoid stimulating movements, such as pummeling and energetic kneading, and spend a long time on soothing strokes such as the cat stroke. For the abdomen, feet, and face, give slow and gentle touches on each area. Shiatsu massage can also be helpful in treating insomnia.
I have numerous clients who, through regular massage, have stopped using prescription medicine and consider that massage is the very best medicine - as effective as drugs or alcohol without any of the side effects.
Self-help for stress-related problems
There is a lot you can do for yourself if you are feeling stressed, anxious, depressed, or if you are having trouble sleeping. One of the problems associated with stress is that it affects your mental health, which can cause people to suffer from low self-esteem; spending time on yourself will help boost morale. Try self-massage; if you take the time and trouble to complete the whole routine you will be amazed at how much better you feel both immediately afterward, and for hours and even days later.
In Japan they have a word for what happens when you work too much, so much until you fall over dead: Karoshi, which means death by overwork. But even in Japan, most people don't usually die from working too much - they just get sick and suffer. And suffering, year after year, can be a prescription for career disaster...
Job stress results when we work too much or under bad circumstances, and it's not news to anyone that such stress can make us sick. But there's a wrinkle that flies under the radar in the stress and health discussion: Not only can an excessively stressful career make us sick, but once we get sick, our lower energy levels affect the quality and quantity of the work we can do, and sooner or later, our impaired performance can in turn ruin our careers.
Unfortunately, excess stress on a daily basis is something all too familiar to lots of people. And for all too many, it has already resulted in an assortment of health problems, ranging from the merely annoying, embarrassing, and slightly painful, such as cold sores, acne, neck pain, headaches, and hair loss, all the way to obesity, heart attacks, and even death.
Sometimes things can get so bad, that karoshi may seem like a merciful way out. But let's focus on the kinds of health consequences that result from stress that doesn't quite kill you and on the impact they can have on your career in turn. If the stress is ongoing, and it usually is, you may well end up suffering for years, alive but not so well.
We know that when the body experiences stress, it releases adrenalin and cortisol as part of our primitive fight-or-flight response. These important hormones help increase the oxygen level in the blood and boost the sugar in the blood - preparing us to either flee or fight.
That reaction may have been useful in an era where fighting or fleeing would have been considered reasonable options. But if your boss is yelling at you, neither bonking him on the kisser nor running away screaming qualifies as appropriate behavior. Instead, there you are, a sitting duck, flooded with stress hormones that have no place to go and serve no purpose except wreak havoc on your well-being.
What havoc? For example, the immune system is suppressed or damaged, which compromises your body's ability to resist infection. So you're the first to catch the office cold and the last to recover from it. And then there are a number of chronic health conditions are either caused or made worse by stress, including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, migraine headaches, and heart disease. Some research suggests that stress can even cause cancer - or push the body over that critical hurdle where our immune system is just no longer strong enough to fight it off.
There are also slightly less obvious conditions, less obvious at least to the outside observer: depression, fibromyalgia, insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and adrenal burnout.
They all have in common that they'll sap your energy and make it very difficult to get much work done. Come performance review, you'll have some explaining to do. And if anything, that'll make your stress-levels even worse.
Can you see where this is heading? Stress may hurt your body, but it will also hurt your career if you don't manage to get on top of it. Ratcheting down your stress levels has got to be a top priority, because it may not only cost you your health but your job as well. And then, what will you do for health insurance?