A couple of weeks ago I had an appointment with my doctor to discuss the headaches that have plagued me for almost 20 years. We’re still working on figuring out why I get headaches and how to stop them, but her first guess is that I’m a little…ahem…high strung. I stress out easily, and I carry a lot of tension in my back and neck. One of her recommendations is that I purchase and use stress management tapes. My first reaction was “you must be kidding me,” but she was quite serious.
Now, I will readily accept that my high-strung nature may be what’s making my head hurt. And I believe that many “new-agey” practices can help alleviate stress - yoga, meditation, visualization, and so on. But…stress management tapes? All I can imagine is some hokey, syrupy voice saying “Imagine yourself on a tropical island…”
So…have you ever used stress management tapes? Did they work? Most importantly - can you recommend a stress management tape that isn’t going to peg the needle on the cheese-o-meter?
You don’t need any special tools or tapes or devices to learn to relax - all you need to do is sit quietly and focus on your breathing a couple of minutes every day. Some conscious relaxation tapes are very useful, too - progressive relaxation (tensing muscles then relaxing them) is very good for teaching a high-strung body to relax (relaxation is a skill that can be learned - we should be teaching it to kids in grade school). You can get tapes like this at your local library or new-age type store.
Visualization was never my best thing. Meditation and progressive relaxation worked much better for me.
What you’re talking about is a lifestyle and attitude change, not a quick fix. Are you up for that? You don’t sound very bought-in - are you planning to give stress-management a fair try?
I will admit, I’m a little skeptical of the whole thing. I want to be a serene, peaceful, Zen kind of person, but sometimes I wonder if I have it in me. When I was younger, I thrived on stress and drama and thought that I’d never want to give it up. Now that I’m paying for it, I’m starting to change my mind.
But if there is anything that can stop my headaches - whether it be stress management, brain surgery, trephination, or whatever - I’ll do it.
I guess the short answer (too late) is that I believe that it can work, I’m just not confident in my capacity for change. The potential rewards (even beyond stopping my headaches) are great enough, however, that I will give it the best try I can muster.
Until I got my anxiety under control on my own, a co-worker loaned me a couple of CDs to fall asleep to. Brian Weiss meditation CDs are supposed to be hypnotic and stuff, but they really did help me relax. I can’t say that they aren’t cheesy, but when you’re working on lifestyle changes, it doesn’t hurt your any to give your brain something to listen to besides your thoughts while you lay in bed.
You can be so much more efficient and capable when you’re not wasting your energy on spinning your wheels on stress, that I don’t think you’ll miss it much. As for missing drama, I can’t speak to that very much. I’ve never liked drama, and would take peaceful and happy over drama any day of the week.
Maybe you don’t have to give up the drama - maybe you can just adjust it so it is good for you, rather than destructive.
Oh, I just had another thought - learning to relax and de-stress doesn’t necessarily mean that you never have stress and drama and high-energy days - just that you learn to shut it off so you can enjoy quiet times and get a good night’s sleep.