Do you want to reduce stress in your life? 

If you do, you have to believe that stress is not real. It doesn’t exist. You have to assume that stress is not integral to life. Stress can only happen when you react to certain situations that are outside of your control, that threaten your wellbeing, your success, or your health. Stress doesn’t have to be part of your life. Read on to find out how Tai Chi reduces stress.

If you can control your reactions and not feel threatened by your external situations, then stress can be managed in your life. Once you take charge of your inner life, there’s no such thing as stress.

The problem is that you see stress everywhere, and you assume that stress is an inevitable part of your life. There are many ways where you can feel stressed.

The Stress You Face
You can get stressed from a personal illness. You can get stressed from reading the news and watching TV. You can get stressed from having disputes with your family and from the struggles of growing up together. You can have stress from social relationships that are just not working for your benefit, and you can get stress from your job. You may have a fear of losing your job. Job-related pressure is the top

Now, why would you want to manage stress at all? Why would you want to manage something that’s not real, that’s self-created and self-inflicted. Stress is a mental construct to deal with pain. Pain is very real. When you are working at your desk, you may feel back pain, neck pain, and even hand pain as you type.  You may feel eye strain and difficulty in sleeping as a result of your job.

Pain is very real, but what’s not real is the stress that you have to undergo to deal with that pain, whether your threats are real or imagined, there is a certain level of anxiety and stress that is produced by your mind. 

This gives the brain a signal to work with the adrenal glands, to produce adrenaline, which increases your heart rate, tenses up your muscles and it makes your lungs work harder to breathe. The body also produces chemicals or hormones called cortisol, which interferes with the function of your neurotransmitters. 

Over time you may forget things. You may have difficulty in thinking and retrieving memories, and this could be terrible when you have to do a job right at work, and this type of mental stress over time can lead to a heart attack. So while pain is very real, stress and your reaction to the pain does not have to be, it does not have to be real.

So how does Tai Chi reduce the amount of stress that you feel? 

First of all, Tai Chi helps you to breathe. It helps you to become aware of your breath and brings you to an inner journey inside the body, away from any external conditions that you may be facing. Breath awareness is a key element to your health and wellbeing. Breathing is not just for gas exchange between oxygen and carbon dioxide. It is a means to regulate your emotions.

When you take the time to deeply and slowly breathe and notice your inhale and exhale, then you know the anger you may be feeling will subside over time. Tai Chi can improve your mood in this manner. You can avoid feeling depression or anxiety simply by breathing slowly every day and pausing to notice your breathing. 

Give Yourself Space and Time
You’re also giving yourself space and time. When you make Tai Chi movements, you make these shapes to give yourself space. Even when you exhale and relax, you give yourself space. This is very important because giving yourself some emotional distance and a bit more time from your external conditions can allow you to observe and analyze the situation and then act accordingly. So when you do Tai Chi, you are working with space and giving yourself space that you need to function properly.

Then Tai Chi can also be used as a tool for massage. So when you get stressed out, you probably want to just go out and get a massage. Well, you can rely on yourself by doing Tai Chi to get a massage for you, by you. The massage is for your internal organs and tissues. The massage happens in the movements of internal energy within the body and also between the body and the surrounding environment. So as you’re breathing in from the environment, you’re gathering the energy from your surroundings. And as you breathe out, there is that exchange between your body and the surrounding environment.

Use Visualization and Imagery to have Positive Thoughts
What if you can perceive your stressful events differently? What if you can react to those events differently so that they’re no longer stressful. Tai Chi increases your self-awareness and promotes a balanced lifestyle so that you can stay away from having stress in your life.

Another tip is to use visualization and imagery to have positive thoughts. For example, you can imagine yourself being a tree, a tree full of life, where your arms and fingers are the branches of a tree and your legs and feet are the roots. And this creates a framework for releasing tension into the earth. 

This helps you to have a good, positive outlook in life.
Now that you know Tai Chi can reduce your stress, you might be wondering how you can make time for Tai Chi? I cover tips like this all the time. I teach more in-depth classes on Tai Chi as well. Tai Chi promotes a healthier life in many ways. Stay tuned for more tips like the one that we just gave you – how to improve your accuracy of perception so that you can avoid stress. Increase the gap between your observation of an event and your conditioned reaction to it. This helps you to reduce stress in life.

You’re going to find more tips on Tai Chi and my insights on Instagram community – Master the Art of Tai Chi. 

Thanks for listening and give me a follow if you’d like more tips.