Comprehensive Stress Management

Comprehensive Stress Management
Name
Institution Affiliation
Technique for reducing stress and being relaxed
Deep breathe
Taking a deep breath is one of the ways in which one can use to reduce the level of stress and feel relaxed. An individual is expected to take around five minutes break and make his or her focus on his/her breathing. The process should be done through slow inhalation via the nose and giving the air time to settle in the abdomen and then exhaling the air through the mouth (Greenberg, 2011). The deep breath reduces the level of stress since it slows down the heart rate as well as lowering the blood pressure.
I had used this technique with my friends when I was fifteen years old. My friend and I used to experience stress whenever we didn’t do well in our assessments in high school. Before the results were released, we used to take deep breaths to reduce the level of stress and to make us relaxed. After a deep breath we could remain calm and collected and accept the results without the stress of failure. Since this technique worked for us, I would recommend the technique to others since it reduces the heart rate and lowers blood pressure.
Decreasing stressful behavior
One of the stressful health behavior I have encountered is too much cigarette smoking. Smoking of cigarette is stressful since we all know that it is not good for our health but due to the nicotine found in the cigarette, every smoker gets addicted to it, and it becomes difficult to stop. The other stressful part of this smoking is the fact that once one is addicted to it, s/he has to find a way of getting cigarette even if it means getting money through what means.

Smoking also exposes people to danger since they get into some criminal activities to have the money to buy the drugs especially the jobless smokers (Greenberg, 2011). The barriers that keep smokers from letting it go is an addiction that is brought about by smoking and also the friend that smokers have. We find it had to leave an act that our friends are doing more frequently. Stopping the act means one has to stop the friendship which is also a big task to perform. The control of the situation is normally in the hands of the smoker because once s/he makes the decision to consider his/her health to smoking; the smoking will never be a big deal. One of the methods that can be used to reduce stress caused by smoking is through professional help. In this case, however, there should be a professional that can guide the smoker in the process of stopping the cigarette smoking.
Physiological Arousal and Behavioral Changes
The use of target heart rate computation is beneficial to the exercise that an individual does. According to me, however, the computation will help me perform the appropriate exercise that can enable me to strengthen my body muscles. For instance, I will be walking a given distance on a daily basis at the start of my exercise. I would then follow by jogging after sometimes and later consider running for a given distance. In my exercise, I would consider the ACSM guide since it gives the best exercise one should be doing (Greenberg, 2011). The other activity I would include is performing press-ups after my normal exercise. This would be an individual activity since through the help of the ACSM guide; it depends on the individual’s body assessment that determines the exercise he/she should be involved in. This activity will make my muscles active and strong hence helping the body fight opportunistic infections. Finally, I would encourage others to participate in this planned activity to help them remain physically fit and to help their bodies fight the opportunistic diseases.
Reference
Greenberg, J. (2011). Comprehensive stress management (13th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.