A Few Tips on How to Relieve Stress

Relieving Stress

While I was sick with schizo-effective disorder I experienced a lot of mental stress. Fear, anxiety, and depression plagued my life and I struggled everyday just to get through the day peacefully without hallucinations, shakes, crying spells, or vomiting. I started finding ways to relieve myself of this stress through yoga, art, and music. Here are a few stress relievers I found that helped me to get through my rough period.

Writing: I would write out my fears in a journal, my angers, and my dreams. I addressed the letters to God and I would yell at Him for what he had done to me. I went through situations in my past that haunted me, my guilt and my shame. I often wrote love poems addressed to God, song lyrics, and short stories. I wrote everything down so it would not bottle up inside me and explode. I found writing to be a very healing process; I released everything I needed to out on paper and I even found beauty and creativity in it. I often wrote a gratitude list. I was angry that I was cleaning houses and I lost my college degree due to my illness, but I was grateful I was able to work, I had a loving supportive family, and I was able to write. I wrote down who I wanted to be and decided I wanted to be kind loving person who listens and helps. I made a list to smile at a stranger on the street, to listen to people more closely, and to talk with my elderly aunt who I was taking care of. It helps to write things down so that you can see them and read them over months later to see where you have been and where you are going. Writing is very healing and free verse I believe works the best. Just let yourself write with grammar mistakes and misspells and bad language. Don’t judge what you write ever, you do not have to show a journal to anyone. The Buddhists when they meditate say to never place an expectation on your mediation. I used writing as a sort of mediation on what I was thinking and found it really helps. After a while, you may find something beautiful is happening inside you that you never noticed before.