Professional Documents
Culture Documents
STRESS
MANAGEMENT
Published by
Swami Vivekananda Yoga Prakashana
#19, Eknath Bhavan, Gavipuram Circle, Kempegowda Nagar, Bengaluru - 560019
City Office - Ph: 080-26612669 Telefax: 080-26608645
Prashanti Kutiram Campus - Ph: 080-22639996
E mail: svyasa@svyasa.org Web: www.svyasa.org
Contents
Ch.No. Title
1
Introduction
Physical Stamina
Page No.
INTRODUCTION
Stress has become one of the biggest challenges of the world. In
spite of millions of dollars being spent for development of management programme to deal with stress, we are no where towards solving even the pinch of the problem. If in early seventies stress used
to be in the executive world only, today it has spread everywhere.
Even small kids, small students, small children come and say oh Maa
I am so stressed up, I am so tensed up, I am so bored. In a multi
ethnic society like Australia 30% of the youngsters, teenagers suffer
from depression. The Federal Government is very concerned. Why
we have not been able to tackle the problem of stress? I consider
there is a fundamental reason for that. That is the knowledge base.
The knowledge base that we have is essentially limited to the physical world around us. Modern science started emerging. The goal of
modern science was to find reality. Is there a fundamental reality
from where this whole creation has come, became the search. Naturally when Newton and Deccan looked at the world at large, they
were bewildered. They said we cannot understand this multi various most complex bewildered creation. They said let us start with
things which are very small fundamental and simple, like how an
object falls down, how the lightening occurs, how the rain falls. So
once we complete the study of physical world around us we will now
go further to things which are beyond. Best of the brain, best of the
wise people put their heart and soul into it to understand the world
UNDERSTANDING STRESS
In this chapter we study factors which are regulating stress, factors
which can influence stress and how Yoga can be very helpful tool
in managing stress. Before we go on to any of the other details, let
us try to understand what stress is all about. All of us keep hearing
this terminology Stress most commonly. Somebody gets stress physically, somebody gets stress mentally, somebody feels heavy emotionally and express that it is highly stressful. It is very commonly
occurring phenomenon in every ones life. Let us try to understand
what exactly stress is all about. In simple terms Stress can be defined
as non specific basic response pattern which prepares an individual
for a demanding situation. This involves activities at physiological
level, activities at the behavioral level and emotional level. Let us see
how the whole event of stress takes place.
A stress producing factor what is called as a stressor can intervene
an individual either as an external agent or as an internal agent. External agent can be physical in nature. It can be due to emotions. It
can also be contributed from the
society. At the same time it can
also be a combination of the above
three mentioned factors. When
we are looking at the factors which
to handle the situation. Let us see what all happens will happen in
the body when you are in such a situation.
Three physiological processes work in conjunction to bring out a
response. They are (1) The Nerves System, (2) The Endocrine System and (3) The Muscular Skeletal System. The parts of the Nerves
System which involve in regulating stress and different endocrine
mechanisms will be detailed little later, before that let us understand
how the whole process happens.
In the first part, Flight or Fight Response, here the body prepares in
three different ways. (1) It gets all the alarming inputs and it prepares the body to handle all these situations in a way so that you can
manage it effectively. What happens basically is at the physiological
level whenever there is a demanding situation, your body prepares
in the form of stimulation. Stimulation makes you ready to natural
situation. For this process Nerves System, Endocrine and the Muscular Skeletal System have to prepare. The whole Nerves System has
been divided into three parts. They are the Central Nerves System,
Peripheral Nerve System and Autonomic Nerves System. What we
are interested to look at is Autonomic Nerves System which controls
the involuntary functions. For example, the heart beating even when
you are sleeping, the respiration continues and the digestive activities goes on even when you are sleeping even when we are not conscious of these functions.
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES
DUE TO STRESS
Before we go on to any of the other details, let us try to understand
what stress is all about. All of us keep hearing this terminology
Stress most commonly. Somebody gets stress physically, somebody
gets stress mentally, somebody feels heavy emotionally and express
that it is highly stressful. If it is very commonly occurring phenomenon in each one of our lives, let us try to understand what exactly
the stress is all about. In simple terms Stress can be defined as non
specific basic response pattern which prepares an individual for a
demanding situation. Having been prepared, it regulates it, makes
you work at different levels so that you can handle the demanding
situation. This involves activities at physiological level, activities at
the behavioral level and modifications at the emotional response pattern level.
A stress producing factor what is called as a stressor can intervene
an individual either as an external agent or as an internal agent. External agent can be physical in nature. It can be due to emotions. It
can also be contributed from the society. At the same time it can
also be a combination of the above three mentioned factors. When
we are looking at the factors which can contribute us as stressor it is
important for us to understand how we can regulate them. This is
where Yoga comes into picture of helping us to understand stress
Let us see how this whole concept of stress can influence our body.
As has been mentioned it involves three different systems to function
at a given point of time. This whole process has been divided into
three phases. Phase one, an alarm response, phase two, where by
an individual settles with the stressful situation whereas stage three
is exertion. What the cognitive Neuron Scientists believe it as general awareness syndrome. In this, basically an individual in the first
stage undergoes series of changes physiologically. This part is called
as Basic Stress Response or the Flight or Fight Response. Most of us
have encountered this in different ways. Whenever there is stressful
situation here the individuals response starts in the form of Arousal
of Autonomic Nerves System whereby a Sympathetic Nerves System takes a lead. Basically the heart starts beating faster. One starts
breathing quicker in order to take more oxygen to supply to the demanding parts, pupils dilate so that visual perception becomes more
STRESS MANAGEMENT
In the last Chapter we discussed how stress is multidimensional
and Yoga can offer a solution to this multidimensional challenge.
Because Yoga works at the Body level, Prana level, Mind level, Emotional level and the Intellectual level. The highly developed, systematically developed Jnana Yoga, Raja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Karma
Yoga work at all these levels to bring solutions to the challenge of
stress. An Integrated Yoga Module that is developed is the one that
combines the whole wisdom base of our country and applied with
yoga techniques judicially to bring the results. Thousands and thousands of people have got the solution from their stress problem. The
Integrated Yoga Module that have presented is based on the Mundokapanishad and the commentary is written by Gowda Pada and
the Mandookya Karika. That Karika Shloka is:
STRESS MANAGEMENT
Yoga for Stress. Stress is something that we find every day and
everybody is talking about stress today. What is this Stress? How
do we understand stress? Why it is becoming a major issue in the
present day life style? Let us try to understand this, find techniques
and learn yogic techniques of helping ourselves to be free from this
what could be called as monsters of present day life style. What is
Stress? As soon as I ask you what is Stress, you will start wondering
have you heard Stress. Yes. I have had lot of stress in my life. What
are your stresses? May be your office, may be your child, difficult
husband, difficult mother, difficult family, difficult politics. So we
tend to relate our stress to a mental state, a reaction, an emotion,
an uncomfortable feeling that is evoked by these different situations.
But stress is not just that uncomfortable feeling. Stress by definition
is a necessary helpful mechanism that is set into our system to be
able to cope up with demanding situations of life. It is a productive mechanism. So stress is not basically a disease. Stress is not
basically only a distress. Stress is a coping helping mechanism to
evoke to manage emergency situations. So for example, you are all
seated here. Suddenly fire alarm comes. What have we to do? It is a
dangerous situation. The sound of the fire alarm falls on your ear, it
goes to your mind, you recognize it as danger and immediately a big
surge of electrical activity comes down from the brain and stimulates
all activities of the body. To make that escape from the danger, we
have to activate even if you are drowsy and sleepy. You are woken
up and you are very alert and then you start moving your limbs very
fast, your heart rate goes up, breathing goes up and just escape from
the danger. After you have escaped from the danger, or you have
gone and fought the fire, what you will do? My god, I have escaped
from danger. You sit there, you relax, you rest and now you will
start feeling how your heart was beating, how your breathing was
so very fast and how your mind was throbbing and your head was
throbbing and how all your muscles had become very tight and now
you starts sweating away so that all the heat in the body starts reducing. After another 5/10 minutes you start feeling hungry. Then
you want to sleep, rest, relax, rejuvenate and restore the system and
this is a natures protective mechanism a Stress Adaptation Response
which nature has provided for us to protect our organism from any
dangerous life threatening situation. Nature has not only provided
this response software, response pattern, response programming for
only physically demanding situation, but it has provided the same
type of response to emotionally demanding situations also. Like
we saw a office tension or a difficult family, difficult calamity or a
difficult situation, finance crisis we get tensed up, we react, we get
heightened alertness and the heart starts beating, pressure goes up,
all these changes. You have to go and face the exam, face the interview. So these are emotionally demanding situations. So to these situations also nature does the same type of response. First at the mind
level where we get anxious or tensed or angry or worry and this is a
psychological emotional response which makes our mind very alert
and then percolates into the body to bring about all these changes
that we saw in the accident fire alarm episode and once the danger
is over and the situation is over, we just restore the system. Nature
has provided a beautiful nerves and chemical mechanism to help us
cope up with and that goes on very nicely. So when we want to get
alert, excited, stimulated, there is one set of nerves called Sympathetic Nerves System which activates increases the heart rate, Blood
pressure, increases the muscle tone, increases the blood glucose level
and makes our mind very very alert and increases the sweating rate,
decreases the blood that goes to the intestine so that the intestine can
wait digestive activity until we escape from danger and once we are
out of danger, Para Synthetic Nerves System takes over and then it
restores, rejuvenates, relaxes, reduce the heart rate, reduce the blood
pressure, improves intestinal motility, improves secretion of digestive juices and makes our system come back to base level of working.
This is a beautiful balancing mechanism. Imagine if this system was
not there, all the time heart only functions at a level which never
increase when required and decrease when not required. This is not
what our system wants. We want to activate and rest and relax and
rejuvenate when the system demand is over. So this process of stress
adaptation is called SAS or Stress Adaptation Syndrome, Stress Adaptation Mechanism which was beautifully described and elaborated
with lots of understanding by two doctors in 1960. The famous doctors Shelly and Levy worked on this stress adaption mechanism and
made us understand Psycho Neuron Physiology. What are all the
changes that happen in our system when we get stressed up and that
makes us understand how this stress is a useful adaptation mechanism.
Then why do we call stress a dangerous thing? What is happening
in the present day life style? Let us see, we activate the system. There
is a demanding situation that activates, heart rate goes up, blood
pressure goes up, alertness goes up and we have no time to get back
to normalcy. Again another demanding situation right from morn-
ing till evening until you wake up, from the time you wake up until
you go to bed. Whole day demand and these demanding situations
are the ones which provoke our Synthetic activity to do its job and
we have no time for the Para synthetic to rest the system, to restore
the system, rejuvenate the system, relax the system, come to base
level of activity. Even after hectic day in the evening and when you
come home, you cannot just go back to sleep because the whole day
eight hours, ten hours, fourteen hours your system was working at
high level of activity. You come back home, you want to go to bed,
sleep does not come. Why? Because the mind is so alert a habit of
activated system is the whole of the problem that in a present day life
style, the fast way of life, the demanding situations packing up one
after the other, no time for restoring the system and lead to a habit
formation and that can lead to stabilize blood pressure which remain
high, stabilize heart rate which remains high, stabilize glucose which
becomes high which can declare as Diabetes, hypertension etc., etc.
STRESS MANAGEMENT
We have understood that stress is not an abnormality if it is used in
the right way. It is the natures protective necessary mechanism, a
reflex, a software programming that is set into our system to help us
cope up with the demanding situation, elevate the blood pressure,
heart rate etc. to cope up with the demanding situation with heightened activity of the Sympathetic Nerves System and once the situation is over, get back to normalcy which is done by Parasympathetic
Nerves System and we also understood that it is the habit of being
activated all the time that is creating the problem. What can happen
if the mind is all the time stimulated? First at the mind level. At the
mind level we start losing sleep. One day it is OK, you had many
greatly demanding situation, you will lose sleep over a very anxious
situation. The next day you will sleep off extra. That is the system
gets rejuvenated. But what is happening in the present day life style?
You are not at all getting the time to get back to sleep. Through-out
the week, there is a demand to work eight hours, ten hours, fifteen
hours. The more you are growing, the more you are achieving, the
more you are progressing, more the demanding situation, more the
problem, more the anxiety, both in the family and in the office. So
this can create lot of demand on our nerves system. So this can lead to
a habit of the nerves system. So the very first manifestation of stress
is shown up in the form of Insomnia, sleeplessness, difficult to start
sleep. You go to bed; you switch off the outside light, switch off all
the outside sound, cover yourself so that all the skin input becomes
off. You are warm inside the bed, but if you want to switch off the
mind it wont switch off because whole days activities, whole days
stimulation, whole day speed up set of mind in which you keep your
mind has become habituated to think. What is that you need to do to
switch off the mind and sleep?
First, we go to bed, put all the lights off. Remove all the stimuli
from all parts of the body, then tell yourself, let me now sleep. That
is enough of an input, a thought in the mind which helps you to slow
down the mind and then naturally gets switched off. The sleep centre gets stimulated. But you are not able to do that. Initial suggestion doesnt work. I want to sleep, I want to sleep, I cannot get sleep,
that happened, this happened, this happened in the morning, that
happened in the morning, Mind becomes very active. Because there
are so many unsolved problems there are many pending thoughts.
So mind becomes over active. You start worrying about what happened in the morning. Somebody insulted you, somebody hurt you
and some suppress feeling or worrying about the future. Tomorrow
morning I have this to solve, I have to solve that. So divert your mind
before going to sleep. We use to teach special techniques to all our
patients who come here to learn yoga therapy. Most of the people
whether they have anxiety or back pain or neck pain have this sleep
difficulty. So what we tell them is first before you go to bed before
you switch off the lights and get into bed do little fast jagging so that
your energy get diverted to lower parts of the body. Then do a little
fast breathing about 10 to 15, then one deep slow breathing and then
one om kar and keep on repeating that, if need be use an audio tape
of recorded instructions of relaxation or auto suggestions yourself.
Start from head. Relax my head, relax my forehead, let me give rest
Bring your legs together; join the heels, toes together, palms by the
side of the thighs. Keep your face smiling till the end. Gently bring
Yoga in Education for Total Personality Development SERIES - 0
your awareness to
the tip of the toes.
Stretch
the
toes,
tighten
the
ankle
joints, tighten the calf muscles. Pull up the kneecaps. Tighten the
thigh muscles. Compress and squeeze the buttocks. Exhale and suck
in the abdomen. Make the fists of the palms and tighten the arms. Inhale and expand the chest. Tighten the shoulders, neck muscles and
compress the face. Tighten the whole body from the toes to the head.
Tighten.. tighten..tighten.. Release and relax. Legs go apart,
arms go apart, palms facing the roof. Assume the most comfortable
position, let the whole body sink down. Let all the groups of muscles
beautifully relax. Collapse the whole body. Enjoy body. Enjoy the
relaxation.
tion feel the nice stimulation in the shoulder muscles. The right
biceps touching the right ear, feel the beautiful surface awareness.
Feel the blood gushing down the arm. Smiling face. Stretch the
right arm from the tip of the finger of the right palm. The entire
right portion of the body gets stretched, but not the face. Face always smiling and relaxed. Slowly start bending down to the left.
Left palm sliding down along the left thigh. Fine movement of
surface awareness. Enjoy the fine stretch of the waist muscles on
the right side and compression on the left side. Observe all the
changes taking place in your body. Slowly start coming back to
vertical position. Feel the blood flowing down, the nerve impulses
throughout the body. Again stretch and pull up the right arm and
the entire right portion of the body stretched from the toes to the
tip of the fingers. Slowly start bringing the arm right down to 135
gliding down smoothly. Feel the pointed awareness at the shoulder as you reach horizontal position and at the wrist as you slowly
turn the palm downwards. Further bring down the right arm to
45. Feel the tingling sensation at the tips of the fingers. Continuously glide down the hand by the side of the thigh and hang it
freely. Have a glance of the whole body again from toes to head.
Entire right portion of the body is beautifully charged with nerve
impulses, light and energized.
Now let us perform AKC from the left side. Slowly start raising
the left arm sideways upwards. 45. Gliding smoothly upwards
to horizontal position, palm twisted upwards. Beautiful pointed
awareness at the wrist. Left arm beautifully moving up to 135.
Then to vertical position. Left biceps touching the left ear. Now
stretch up the left arm from the tip of the left fingers. Entire left
portion of the body gets stretched up but not the face, face smiling
and relaxed. Slowly start bending to the right. Right palm sliding
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Now slowly sit down and then lie down to avsana from the right
side. Let all the movements be slow and continuous. The entire right
arm stretched, head on the right biceps, left leg on the right leg, left
palm on the left thigh, the weight getting transferred to the ground
from the right side, beautiful sharp linear awareness. Slowly turn
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over, the muscles of the back collapsing on the ground, bring down
the right arm along the ground. Legs apart, arms apart, palms facing
the roof. Assume the most comfortable position.
Phase I - Observing the abdominal movements
Bring your awareness to the movements of the abdominal muscles
moving up and down as you breathe in and out. Recognize the haphazardness and jerky movement of the abdominal muscles. Do not
manipulate the breathing, let it be natural, simply observe the abdominal movement. Count yourself five rounds mentally, one inhalation and one exhalation forming on round.
Phase II - Associate with breathing
Synchronize the abdominal movements with the breathing. While
inhaling the abdomen bulging up and while exhaling the abdomensinking down. Inhale deeply and exhale completely. Continue up to
five rounds.
Phase III-Breathing with feeling
As you inhale, the abdominal muscles are coming up feel the whole
body getting energized and feel the lightness. As you exhale, feel
the whole body collapses and sinks down nicely, releasing all the
stresses and tensions completely. Inhale deeply and exhale completely. Continue up to five rounds.
Bring your legs together and hands by the side of the body.
Come up straight with the support of the elbows to the sitting
legs stretched relaxation position Sithili Dandsana. Let all the
movements be slow and continuous without jerk. Legs apart take
the support of the palms backwards. Relax the neck muscles. The
your palms, loosen the wrist joints, relax the forearms, loosen the elbow joints, relax the hind arms-triceps, biceps and relax your shoulders. Shift your awareness to your neck, slowly turn your head to
the right and left, again bring back to the center. Relax the muscles
and nerves of the neck. Relax your middle part of the n body, totally
relax. R..e..l..a..x.. Chant U-kra, UUU.. Feel the vibration in the
middle part of your body.
Phase-III
Gently bring your awareness to your head region. Relax your chin,
loosen your lower jaw and upper jaw, relax your lower and upper
gums, lower and upper teeth and relax your tongue. Relax your
palates-hard and soft, relax your throat and vocal chords. Gently
shift your awareness to your lips, relax your lower and upper lips.
Shift your awareness to your nose, observe your nostrils, and feel the
warm air touching the walls of the nostrils as you inhale. Observe
for a few seconds and relax your nostrils. Relax your cheek muscles,
feel the heaviness of the cheeks and have a beautiful smile on your
cheeks. Relax your eye balls muscles, feel the heaviness of eye balls,
relax your eye lids, eye brows and the space between the eye brows.
Relax your forehead, temple muscles, ears, the sides of the head, back
of the head and crown of the head. Relax your region totally relax.
R..e..l..a..x.. and chant M-kra, MMM.. Feel the vibration in your
head region.
Phase-IV
Observe your whole body from toes to head and relax, chant AUM
in a single breath A..U.M. Feel the resonance throughout the
body.
Phase- V
Slowly come out of the body consciousness and visualize your body
lying on the ground completely collapsed.
Phase- VI
Imagine the vast beautiful blue sky. The limitless blue sky. Expand
your awareness as vast as the blue sky. Merge yourself into the blue
sky. You are becoming the blue sky. You are the blue sky. Enjoy the
infinite bliss. E..N..J..O..Y.. the blissful state of silence and all pervasive awareness.
Phase-VII
Slowly come back to body consciousness. Inhale deeply. Chant an
Om-kra. Feel the resonance throughout the body. The soothing and
massaging effect from toes to head.
Phase- VIII
Gently move your whole body a little. Feel the lightness, alertness
and energy throughout the body. Slowly bring your legs together
and the hands by the side of the body. Turn over to the left or the
right side and come up when you are ready.
STEP-VIII: CLOSING PRAYER