What does stress have to do with your soul? Pretty much everything.

Humans are made of many complex layers, like a rainbow, & your soul is that central part that essentially holds all the magic. The soul is often forgotten, since we usually end up focusing more on the mesmerizing 7 colors of the spectrum, and less on their original white source. In reality though, any minor improvement in this white magical part, will be reflected greatly, dare I say –multiplied, on all the visible colors.

10 Ways to conquer stress through soul related practices

1. Meditation

Taming your stress beast, one meditation at a time.

According to Wikipedia, meditation is

‘a practice where an individual uses a technique to train attention and awarness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.’

Growing up in a community obsessed with meditation has certainly put a lot of pressure on all of us, myself included. During the post meditation chitchats, participants would talk about how heart warming and calm the experience has made them feel while I’d pretend I was actually able to reach the ‘zen phase’ and was not in fact going over every horrible decision I’ve taken since birth.

After alot of research, I’ve come to realize the keyword that made the whole difference. It was adding the word GUIDED. Guided meditation.

With guided meditation, you only had to follow the instructor’s orders; you only had to listen!

It is a bliss knowing that you can rest idly and let someone help you relax. As days passed, meditation became an essential part of my daily routine. I’d read that the thing about meditation is that it needs to be done daily to reach its full effect. It has a cumulative value that is reflected following consistent practice.

After a lot of kindness and understanding directed at myself, I succeeded at taming my mind without the extra guided assistance. It was a milestone for me to change my conception from being harsh on myself and asking why I can’t do something to not only being lenient and understanding, but for acknowledging all the efforts I’m making and thanking my mind for trying hard.

Its also OK that whenever you’re facing too much stress, you can always switch back to the guided type and relax.

Take home advice:

Meditation helps you achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. Best achieved by repetition so give it time and you will reap all its benefits.

Benefits:

  • Empty your mind
  • Cue your body’s muscles to relax & decrease muscle tension
  • Detach your emotions and life circumstances.
  • Lower your heart rate, blood pressure, metabolic rate & respiratory rate
  • Improve sleep
  • Lower levels of anxiety and depression
  • Reduce PMS symptoms

when you meditate, your body switches from STRESS mode to RELAXATION mode    

+

According to the ECG: people who practice relaxation response exhibit a slow synchronization of alpha & theta waves   

Alpha State: A state of relaxed wakefulness which triggers your creativity & openness to understanding new concepts.

Theta State: A state which links higher centers like cortex and hypothalamus together enabling mature thinking and emotional processing, deeper insights and better alignment with intuition

                      

—— Link to Balance app

5 Element System of traditional chinese medicine

2. Affirmations

The power of affirmations

Affirmations are positive statements that you write & then repeat to yourself everyday. They dont have to be real, they just need to be positive.

Do you know HOW important that is? I’m pretty sure you’re asking me, if they’re not real, how will I believe them?

Well let me start by reminding you that you actually DO practice affirmations DAILY, you just do it negatively. You always talk down to yourself without ANY SUPPORTING EVIDENCE to your statements

You say to yourself ‘Nah, i cant wake up early, nah i wont be able to finish all that today, No I’m too fat, No I’m not fit, no I’m not good enough- Not smart enough’ and guess what? You repeat that OVER & OVER every single day for a very long duration.

Now lets human-ify your mind into a little child. That little child gets all his data from you & only you. He had no connection to the outer world and takes data from you without any filters. If you tell him the sky is neon colored & full of unicorns, he will take that statement as a fact and dream to ride the unicorn when he’s all grown. If you tell him you live on the moon, he will believe you. On the other hand, if you constantly criticize the world out there & point out how unfair & unjust it is, he will also believe you & take your statement to heart. There is a term called child conditioning, because the child is so pure & vulnerable to every word & feeling you tell him, you must always be careful while talking to him. Now your mind is your child, you can tell your mind that you’re incapable of being good and guess what? It will believe you. You can also tell your mind that you are the best thing that has ever happened to this universe. You can tell your mind that you can do anything you set your mind to. You can tell your mind how healthy your body is, how fit you are, how energetic & smart you are. It will automatically assume that position & manifest that FACT into ACTION.

And that’s where the power of affirmations really steps in. Its all within your hands to reverse all that negative self talk. Be positive. Repeat them every morning & at night. Repetition is key

You see, if I tell you every single morning & night that the Earth is flat, it will only be a matter of time that you will believe & even try to find evidence of exactly that. The same happens with your mind so kindly feed it HEALTHY thoughts to be rewarded with GREAT manifestations.

Below is an example of my daily affirmations.

‘I thrive to be the best, and i am the best

I wake up determined and i go to bed satisfied

I set daily goals for myself and I achieve them

I love myself

I have all the qualities required to reach my goals & i avhieve anything i set my mind to

I respect myself

I wake up when my alarm rings and i sleep on time, easily & effortlessly

I am fit & healthy, I’m very capable of doing strengthous exercise

I am equal, I can easily compete with anyone

I spend time with my loving family & receive endless love & support from them

I’m with the love of my life who always makes time for me regardless of anything

He treats me the way i deserve, like a blessing. I know I am

I am fulfilled and balanced. I’m neutralized

I have the body i’ve always dreamt of having and I do everything in my power to maintain & better it

I am surrounded by love & acceptance & respect

My colleagues and professors love & respect me and admire my work & ethics

My future is full of amazing surprises

I know I’m capable of dealing with anything that arises when the time comes

I am a bubble of positivity

I anticipate the good, see the good & do the good

I spread positivity & greatness everywhere

Rules: never say ‘try’ ‘might or anything that is unsure

Download this free printable PDF to get your own affirmations worksheet & customize it

—- Design

3. Prayers

I hope you believe in the importance of prayers regardless of your religion or whether you believe in God or not, acknowledging that there is a higher energy above you that has a plan for everything and  somehow dictates your destiny and that no matter what happens its a part of the plan of the universe.

Its a form of service

Helping or doing for someone a system supplying a public need or to perform routine maintenance or repair work on

Prayers can repair an emptional wound.Its the prescribed method at maintaining oue apirtutal well being

Act of obedience

Avenue to resolution, the path to finding an answer to a problem

provides insight to our dileemmas and tough decisions

Way of communication with god

How we make requests

How we become wiser

How we gain power and confidence

Therapeutic

Sets the rythm of the day

Shields against evil, enriches the soul, makes us humble, wash away our sins, cures our problems, unites muslims.

4. Journaling

Writing your feelings out is is a magical cure that helps in grounding yourself.

When you express your emotions out into paper, it makes you more able to organize and articulate them, it essentially makes you more able to discover what is bothering you. It shows you how judgmental and how negative and harsh you’ve been to yourself.

One trick I’ve always done was to just messily write everything on my mind without any governance and then read it, cry/laugh and then cut it into tiny pieces so nobody can read how crazy my thoughts actually are. Sometimes though, i feel i wanna get back and read them to track how I’ve overcame my problems in life and when faced with problems later on I’d know I’ve been through that before and that i will survive.

During my finals every year, I tend to lose all my motivation, positivity & willingness to do anything and wonder how I’ve previously dealt with that and managed my stress. I would wonder how the hell I’ve gone through that! And so I’ve created this system where on my last finals day, I’d give advice to my future self who will go through finals next year & write down tips & tricks on the notebook I’m going to use the following year:

It would be something like:

‘Hi, I know its hard and i know you think this wont pass but you’ve made it this far! You’ve done this this and THAT, you’re amazing and great. You can just follow those few hacks of maybe starting earlier throughout the day, not ignoring your well being, getting enough sleep the night before your exam & practice daily gratitude. Be kind to yourself, you deserve it.’

5. Gratitude

Being thankful for your blessings and not taking them for granted not only elevates stress, it makes you realize how fortunate & blessed you are. It helps you get an outer view of the bigger picture of what really matters. Your health, family & friends are well. Writing out 3 things you are grateful for every day can make a huge difference in your life. They can be things as simple as breathing, walking, seeing, touching, feeling, hearing, smelling. They can be things that happened such as getting your dream job, getting into the college you wanted, getting the grade you wanted. They could be for your partner, your boss, your friend, your brother/sister, your kid. It could be for essential things as having a roof above your head, food & water on your table or materialistic things as having a phone, tv, washing machine. Be grateful for being able to speak & write, for the languages you know, for every single blessing.

The Jar of Happiness

Get a jar, a pen & some papers, write one good thing that has happened to you during the day. It can range from ‘I got a hug’ to ‘I’ve lost 1 kilo’ document your successes. It may be that an old friend texted you or a family member called to check up on you. Any form of care you receive during the day, choose just one item, write it on a piece of paper, fold it and collect it in the jar. At the end of the month or whenever you’re feeling especially down, open the jar and read how happy & blessed you are 🙂

If you’re into colors like me, buy those colorful pens & papers for a glittery experience

Link for jar

Link for label sticking on jar with marker

Link for pens

Link for coloring papers

6. Breathing Exercises

Deep breathing is one of the best ways to lower stress. This is because when you breathe deeply, it sends a message to your brain to calm down & relax. The brain then sends                                   this message to your body.

—CALM

Belly breathing

Roll breathing

4,7, 8 breathing technique

7. Music

You probably already do this step but don’t understand the system behind it. Your brain tends to link certain events to how you felt, what you were wearing, or what you were listening to. it is a sort of nostalgia state that brings back how you felt during a certain moment and relays it again. Sort of like dejavu but with songs.

Skilfully choosing certain types of music targeting the synchronization of your alpha and theta waves can aid you in relaxing and loosing some of the stress

—- Youtube link

8. Colors

70% of the input you receive in from your vision. Everything you see around you indirectly controls your mood. Colors have certain energies that can affect your mood and either elevate or trigger it.

BLUE: In color psychology, This color stands true to its appearance. Peaceful, calm and gentle, blue has tremendous power to manage stress. It’s a very soothing color that helps calm your mind, slow down your heart rate, lower your blood pressure and reduce anxiety. Blue is believed to have a cooling and astringent effect. When choosing the right shade of blue, it’s best advised to go for a soft and neutral shade (eg bedroom wall) for a calming effect

Purple is a royal color. The color meaning for purple is connected to power, nobility, luxury, wisdom, and spirituality.

Olive Green: Green is the color of nature and is associated with spring,  relaxation, and well-being. It is reminiscent of the environment, growth, and financial prosperity.

Olive green brings a calming, peaceful mood to a room that is perfect for living rooms and guest rooms. If your living room is one of your main sections for family gatherings or entertaining guests, green will bring freshness and harmony to this room.

When a guest is staying in your home, you’d like them to be comfortable and relaxed. Olive green is a calming color for the walls that will help them settle in and make them feel comfortable.

9. Energy Cleanse

Water is the best & naturally occurring type of energy cleanse. Especially salted water which explains the tranquility you experience on the beach. This sort of cleanses our energy from all the negativity and increases our openness to receive.

Luckily, you don’t have to travel to get to the beach, you can try to get the beach to you when you don’t have enough time.

— Link to salt

Taking a shower is the physical form of the energy cleanse. Removing the dirt and grease from your hair is physical cleaning while removing negativity and anxiety is the spiritual form.

10. Aromatherapy

It is well known that lavender essential oil cools you down and increases your ability to relax

—Link to lavender oil

— Essential Oils diffuser