Your Personal Journey to Stress Reduction by Jennifer Shapiro-Lee, MSW, LCSW-R
Jennifer is a certified Mindfulness and Meditation Instructor, Mindfulness workplace trainer and an educated Psychotherapist. She takes holistic approach to mental health integrating traditional therapies with mindfulness, meditation and self-care to help clients cope up with real life challenges and transitions.
She teaches individually as well as in groups and is also a Motivational speaker.
While talking about self-care she asked some important questions as to what is that brings joy to oneself outside work. Self-care is a constant effort to focus on oneself first which helps us understand the current stress levels and gradually taking measures to deal with it and remove them in due course of time.
Self-care comprises of taking care of oneself on all levels – mental, emotional and physical. Though we know it’s important, but it is again the most overlooked segment of our life. Self-care can help remove stress, improve mood and reduce anxiety. Conscious effort is required for the same to keep oneself stress-free at all levels.
In the webinar she also shared some expert opinions which highlighted the fact that ignoring ourselves means we don’t matter, we are not worth the effort and we don’t deserve our best. It is important to remind ourselves from time to time that we are important. Everything that we do is for ourselves and self-care is something which will enable us to balance stress and optimize life. Some people are of the opinion that self care is selfish but that’s not right. It’s not only important to know what we need, cherishing oneself is not luxury, it’s most important part of life. If you cannot take care of yourself subsequently you will not be able to take care of others as-well.
There are different ways of self-care:
Physical:
Balanced Nutrition: Healthy eating habits help to keep you fit and fine. You need to go easy on yourself and start all over again to plan the balanced nutrition for yourself.
Get a Good Night’s Sleep:
A good nights’ sleep is all you need to de-stress, relax and rejuvenate. You can listen to some deep relaxing music and set aside some time for yourself before bed.
Exercise:
Workout is important to keep you fit and fine. A healthy work out keeps you active and young at all ages. It gives power to your soul.
Breathe Fresh Air:
Taking a walk in the open to a nearby park, or a beach can help you reduce on stress levels considerably.
Emotional:
Work Through Stressful Feelings:
One needs to observe how one feels today. Understand on what is that brings you down. Try not to think too much about anything. Try to discard feelings that weigh you down. Once you feel lighter, you will feel more happier.
Stress Distractors:
If one is feeling stressed one needs to find something that diverts your attention. While you find something else to focus on, you will gradually stop thinking about the stressful situation and start feeling better.
Resilience Awareness:
Remember how you coped up with any stressful situation in the past, what gave you strength, what worked for you at that moment. Try to find out what worked for you and do it regularly in order to keep stress away.
Change is the only constant:
Nothing is permanent. Times change and bring different experiences for you. Every experience teaches you something and you should learn from it. It only makes you stronger.
While talking about the mental and emotional wellbeing and how to incorporate the same in life, Jennifer also shed light on how meditation can help restore balance in life. There are various benefits of meditation which cannot be overlooked like regulated blood pressure, lowered heart rate and cholesterol, reduced stress and enhanced appreciation of life. She uses meditation in daily life and has enjoyed the benefits of the same. She feels happy to have got a chance to lead you through a guided session which can help you restore the balance in life.
She also briefed on simple steps on how to meditate at home. It was easy to follow by all the attendees who also practiced meditation on call along with her. Breathing techniques she recommended is an important stress relief exercise and should be followed by everyone on daily basis.
Summarizing the guided session, she recalled a few important points again as to what you can incorporate in your daily life for managing your overall mental wellbeing. Good habits like proper sleep, exercise and healthy nutrition can go a long way in keeping a healthy lifestyle. Exploring nature restore peace or mind, body and the soul. You need to be kind to yourself. While one feels low or depressed, it’s important to distract yourself to something more productive and helps one relax for a while.
Self-care is important and it’s not being selfish. One can care for others only when one takes good care for oneself.
The amazing webinar was conducted on Group Thera platform by Psychonline. In case if you are a medical practitioner, clinic or a hospital and want to take advantage of online webinar platform you can reach out to us at +1 617-775-3429 or email at [email protected]