_3. Relax Your Body Often:  The easiest way to relax your body quickly is to tense each muscle group (each part of your body) and then relax it. For example: tense your hand then relax, tense your arm then relax, tense your head then relax, same for your neck all the way down to your toes. 

By consciously tensing your muscles and relaxing them you are helping your body relax deeper as you are defining tense and relaxation – and indicating to your body how you want to feel i.e. relaxed.

Do this while following the breathing pattern of deep inhales and exhales. [ Extract from here.]

Once you have done this a few times you should become good at relaxing quickly and easily, whenever you want.

_4. Quick Mental Relaxation: All you have to do is to imagine something that makes you feel calm and relaxed. I like to imagine myself at the beach, a lake or in a beautiful garden. The key to make this technique work for you is to imagine your chosen scene of relaxation in vivid detail. For example: if you choose the beach then imagine how the sun would feel, what the wind and sand would feel like, imagine the smell of the ocean and even the seagulls in the distance. Take your time and imagine that you are actually on the beach i.e. make yourself feel like you are on the beach and surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells of  the beach. Imagining any peaceful scenery in as much detail as you can will do. [ Extract from here.]

_6. Master Instant Stress Relief Acupressure: Use the following acupressure techniques to relieve stress quickly and easily [about 3-5 minutes].

Holding Neurovasculars for Stress Relief

Combine light pressure with your fingertips on your neurovascular points while doing deep and slow Diaphragmatic Breathing. You can enhance this by putting your thumbs on your temples. An alternate method to doing this is to put your right palm on your right point and left palm on the left point. Hold lightly and breathe deeply. When you get stressed the blood drains from your forehead and holding the neurovasculars while breathing helps to bring this blood back up. This will increase the oxygen to your brain and help you think clearer.

NOTE: Using this one technique when you are feeling under allot of stress can help you feel better really quickly. Just hold the acupressure points and breathe deeply followed by the following...

The "3 Thumps"to Increase Energy

After practicing the above technique do the 3 thumps to increase your energy levels. The 3 thumps include the remaining 3 points labeled on the diagram above;

· K-27 points are in the slight depression just below the 'ball' of your collar bone. Use the middle finger of the right hand to vigorously massage the left point, simultaneously doing the right point with the left middle finger. Massage in circular motion while breathing deeply for 3-4 minutes. This helps meridians that get scrambled with stress to flow in their natural paths.

· Thymus Point is about 2 inches below your K-27 points, in the center of your chest. Use 4 fingers to tap vigorously. Tap for 2 minutes with each hand. Stimulating this point will boost your immune system.

· Spleen Neurolymphatic Points are one rib below where your breasts end. Trace a line from your nipples to where the skin of your breast joins your chest. One rib below most people will find a sore spot. Tap vigorously using 4 fingers bunched up. Use your right hand for the right point and vice versa. Do this for about 1-2 minutes while breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Doing this will increase your energy level and boost your immune system.

IMPORTANT: If you feel sick then your spleen points might be so badly blocked that massaging them might make you throw up. First touch the points lightly and then exert more pressure till you can feel it but hold it comfortably. Some people may need to lie down and lightly hold each of the pressure points in turn for about 5-10 minutes while breathing calmly and comfortably. [Extract from here.]

_7. Enhancing Breathing's Positive Effects with Visualization

Your imagination can be your most powerful ally. Professional athletes practice visualization before performance. And studies have shown that practicing visualization before a performance can be just as effective as actual physical practice. In other words, your subconscious, tends to perceive imagination/visualization and physical realty as the same! So I will say it again. Imagination is your most powerful ally. Make it your friend.

A Quick Lesson in Visualization

Many people believe that they cannot 'see images'. Fortunately that's not possible. If you have eyes images play a large role in how you organize your perceptions. If you can daydream then you can visualize.

· An easy way to start is just to think about your house or apartment.
· Imagine you are standing outside and looking at your door
· Describe your door in detail. What color is it? What is the shape of the door handle? What is it's color? How high is the door? What does it sound like if you knock on it?
· The part of your mind that you are using to describe the door is the part you can use for visualization.
· Imagine your door in a different color. First blue, then red, then green, then yello, then purple. If you can do this you can do all the visualizations in this course. Simply use your imagination and pretend if you have to. The more you can pretend the better your imagination will get at it.

Exercise: "Golden Light/Energy" Breathing Meditation

Visualizing Yourself Breathing in 'Golden Light' can be a Very Effective Breathing Meditation to Help Calm and Focus.

All you have to do is imagine yourself surrounded by golden light (fill it with peaceful emotions, such as feeling relaxed or confident) and slowly start breathing it in. It helps to imagine absorbing sunlight as if a beam of sun light as enveloped you and you are breathing this beam of sunlight into your body through your pores. Imagine roots from your feet into the earth as a kind of grounding, to balance the meditation.)

Steps
· First breathe in the light through your mouth then pretend to breath it in through your skin.
· Breathe this light in deeply and breathe out any tension.
· Breathe through each part of your body in turn.
· Finally see if you can feel as if you are breathing in this light through every pore in your body.
[Extract from here.]

_ 8. Breathing In "Colors" [Next 3 techniques are extracts from here.]

To do this meditation correctly you have to pick a color that makes you feel relaxed and peaceful. Imagining the color vividly will help you get some stress relief. You can pick any color you like, from blue, to gold, to red. Once you have picked the appropriate color then you can begin doing the following;

Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight. Breathe slowly and deep while imagining that you can actually breathe in your chosen color on each inhale. Breathe in this color till it feels like your body and mind are filled with it.

9. Create A Mental Sanctuary 

The idea behind this meditation is that imagining a place that makes you feel good, safe and relaxed will trigger an appropriate response in your body.

Pick a place you feel safe and comfortable. It could be a garden, a forest, a waterfall, anything. Visualize this place clearly and 'step in'. Spend some time meditating as if you are actually there. Use this meditation whenever you need to take a quick break and get some relief from stress.

10. Breathing In A Pleasant Smell

Smell is very important to us and easily alters our internal states.

Pick a flower or food that smells extremely good to you (in reality or in your imagination). Breathe in this smell deeply and slowly. Take your time enjoying the feeling of the smell "fill" your body. You will feel refreshed and rejuvenated.

11. _Relax By Preparing Yourself Mentally and Emotionally Using The Following Visualization Practice:

This technique brings together the lessons of positive thinking and the meditation for relaxation to make it easier to change your behavior. This technique will work as a simple positive thinking exercise and you can combine it with the meditation practice to make it a powerful self-hypnosis technique. 

First – choose a stressful situation that you want to change. I.e. something that you wish you would react to differently or handle with more calm and confidence.

Second – Imagine/Visualize the way you want to act and behave in great detail. If you want to feel calm, alert and confident then imagine how your would act in a previously stressful situation where you now have the ability to remain calm and confident.

Third – Step into the scene you have created. Imagine you are actually in this situation you have created. Feel the calmness and confidence you would feel in this visualization of how you would like to behave and act. [Extract from here.]

__12. Learn Zen

[ Note: The following are extracts from this ebook  and this webpage. ]

Bodhidharma was probably a teacher of yoga and qigong, as were many of the teachers of his day. His writings cover only his philosophy of mind which came to be known as “Zen”. 

“You ask. That’s your mind. I answer. That’s my mind. If I had no mind, how could I answer? If you had no mind, how could you ask? That which asks is your mind.”

 The act of perceiving anything, be it a question, or a thought, an image – anything – is an act of the mind.

 When you ask for a definition of the mind, it is the mind that asks about itself.

 “But the mind has no form and its awareness no limit.”

 Any form or image you can imagine is a creation of your mind.

 “All appearances are illusions. They have no fixed existence, no constant form. They’reimpermanent.” (also read "The Nature of the Self")

 People grow and idle. Mountains erode over the millennia by the wind and rain. Given a large enough perspective on time, everything is impermanent. Everything is a ‘flow’ of the force. As quantum mechanics describe it, the material world (matter) is like foam on the patterns of vibration which pervades the universe. As long as you re attached to appearances, your unaware that your mind is empty. By clinging to appearances you lose your connection with the force [i.e. you cannot be grounded if your mental balance is attached to something that is constantly changing or is by it's very nature 'impermanent'] . (Also read this article.)

Since any conception is a creation of your mind, then it follows that your mind is basically empty. (it creates your thoughts, what creates it? As you think of an answer, notice,  it is the mind coming up with more images/words describing itself)

“The mind’s capacity is limitless, and its manifestations are inexhaustible. Seeing forms with your eyes, hearing sounds with your ears, smelling odors with your nose, tasting flavors with your tongue, every movement or state is all your mind. At every moment, where language can’t go, that’s your mind.”

Every time you try to imagine something outside of your mind you can’t, because it is your mind that is doing the perceiving. To know that the object you see is a tree, is a conception you have that you have imposed on it. To see an object with out defining it, is still your mind but in a state of direct experience – with out any conception.

Enlightenment = heightened awareness that can be maintained constantly

Nirvana = a state where the self (or yourself that you create in your mind) ceases to exist and all the world is experienced directly.

“To search for enlightenment or nirvana beyond this mind is impossible.”

Translation: The idea here is that as soon as you begin ‘seeking’ an experience, you have put that experience into a category and separated it from yourself.

Then you chase this conception you have of what ‘enlightenment’ or ‘nirvana’ should be.

As long as you have an image to chase, i.e. your mind is chasing something it has created; you will be like a donkey with a carrot forever just out of reach, going round and round attaining nothing. Why? Because all enlightenment/nirvana are attributes of your mind itself. You already have what you seek. So looking for what you already have is pointless .

Exercise: Walking Meditation

Goal: Letting go of the self-reflexive aspect of the mind and experiencing yourself and your environment with greater awareness.

This is a great meditation to 'get out of your head' and expand your awareness of your surroundings.

While walking start becoming aware of your breath. Expand this awareness to include the feel of the clothes on your body and the feel of your feet on the ground. While continuing your awareness of your breath and body, become aware of the place you are walking and the scenery around you. Finally, being aware of breath, body and surroundings add the huge dome of the sky above you and the earth below you. Breathe deeply and relish this expanded sense of awareness.

13. Take A Break with Binaural Beats (Sounds Designed for Relaxation): Scientists have discovered that you can also entrain your brain from one frequency to another using a sound technology called binaural beats. What happens is that two sounds are played at difference frequencies. One in each ear. For example 480 hrz in one ear and 490 hrz in the other. The brain perceives the difference of these two frequencies which is 10 hrz. After listening to these sounds for a while the brain begins to follow along at 10 hertz and an alpha brainwave state if achieved.   _[ To experience binaural beats you can download a free software program called “BrainWave Generator”. You can download it here. (The videos below with affirmations contain binaural beast as well... it only works with headphones). Simply install the software and read the help menu after you have installed it to get an idea of how to use it.] [Extract from here.]

14. Learn Self-Hypnosis (or at least listen to a good 10-20 minute self-hypnosis/affirmation recording at least once a day; Such as, in the morning or before going to sleep.) The audio below is designed to be used with headphones and includes relaxation with the self-hypnosis suggestions. 7 audio playlist for stress relief is here. A complete explanation of hypnosis and self-hypnosis is here. Enjoy!

15. Change Your Focus: It is a well known fact that the mind affects the body. If you think angry thoughts you will feel angry and if your think happy thoughts you will feel happy.

If you think negative thoughts then your brain will release chemicals associated with those thoughts. For example: if you think angry thoughts then chemicals will be released by the brain into your body that make you feel angry. Thinking pleasant or happy thoughts would make you feel good. It’s that simple.

Sometimes we have a tendency to think more negative thoughts particularly in negative situations, which makes us more stressed out. Learning to refocus our thoughts on a positive perspective not only reduces stress but also makes us more able to deal with the stressful situation we are faced with. [Extract from here.]

Qigong for Stress relief
Qigong for Stress Relief is my favorite practice set at the moment as it's basic, it gets me done in 40 minutes and it feels good.

Qigong: Begining Practice

Qigong Begining pratice is the first Qigong program of the Garripolie's that I have used. It's intensive and energizing. It also utilizes several acupressure points in the practice as a kind of self-massage. The following documentary clip is also from this beginning practice.

The following Amazon DVD product is the Garripoli's latest Qigong program which I haven't practiced but hope to.