How to Relax and Destress Without Drinking Alcohol from Udemy

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Learning objective

Find alternative ways of relaxing and destressing without using alcohol or other drugs

Syllabus

Challenging Yourself

There are far better ways of relaxing, dealing with stress, or getting to sleep at night other than contaminating your body with the toxins contained in alcohol or other drugs.

What you eat or drink has a direct influence on how you feel in your mind and your body. There’s a lot of truth in the statement ‘you are what you eat’! If you want to feel good, eat good food. If you want to feel like crap, eat crappy food.

Before we start looking at the types of foods you should be eating for a healthy and full life, I want to highlight a few things you need to be aware of.

Eating more frequently and taking smaller portions is a way of maintaining your energy levels and core stability. Grazing is the way our bodies are designed to eat.

We’ve all heard versions of the saying, ‘you should always get a good breakfast inside you before you start the day’ or ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’. Why is that?

What is Mindfulness and Why Should You Be Mindful When You Eat?

Why is it important to sit when you eat?

Being food mindful is about being in the moment, relaxing and enjoying your meals. It’s also about understanding how your body and mind are reacting to the food you’ve just eaten.

We all have those days when we just don’t feel like cooking. Maybe you’ve had a hard day with the kids or at work, you’ve just received a hefty bill in the post, or you’ve had some bad news that you’d rather forget. The end result is the same - you can’t be bothered with all that preparing and cooking. How do you make sure you're getting good nutrition even when you can't be arsed to cook?

“The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.”

Just as all calories are not made equal, not every carb is good for you, not every carb is bad for you. What's going on here?

The number one food to avoid, if you want to boost your chances of having a stress-free life, is processed-sugar.

Trans fats give processed foods taste and texture, while extending their shelf life. Unfortunately, the price for this indulgence is often paid with your health.

Most of our food industry pays no attention to the health of its customers. And unfortunately, we are treated by a health care industry that pays no attention to the food that we eat. We spend way too much time in counting calories when we should really be concentrating our maths skills on counting chemicals.

This tutorial is the last in the series that looks at which foods you should avoid. We look at the removing products that only pretended to be food. Junk the food, not your health.

The healing power and other benefits of garlic.

The healing properties of honey.

In this tutorial we look at dark chocolate, why it’s a better choice of chocolate, and how it can help you to function more efficiently.

The benefits of nuts.

The benefits of celery.

The benefits of oats.

The benefits of eating magnesium rich foods.

Fruit is just fantastic for your health and makes the perfect fast food.

Root veggies are relatively inexpensive, available throughout the year, and are the most under-appreciated form of great nutrition.

Our bodies and brains are made of 75% water. Even your bones are about 22% water. Your blood has a higher concentration, at 83% with your liver clocking in at a huge 96%. It’s no wonder the liver is capable of regenerating itself.

Alcohol has no beneficial effects for your body, mood, emotions, or life. Alcohol is a toxic chemical which you force onto your body for the sake of the illusion of comfort.

Is coffee good or bad for you?

Truth is, regardless of which type of soda you choose to drink, it’s not good for you.

Being comfortable in your own skin, getting down to the fundamental you, stripping off the outer layers and meditating in the nude. It’s not for everyone, but it’s something everyone should try at least once.

A breathing exercise that will help you to stay relaxed and stress free.

Using a balloon to calm your breathing.

The magic of smiling, even if you have to force it out.

The benefits of laughter yoga from Dr Madan Kataria. It’s another suggestion which is a bit ‘out there’, but I think if you open your mind to these types of weirdness, even if you don’t practice laughter yoga all the time, you’ll get something out of it.

Journaling and garbage writing, two forms of expressive and explorative digging into your thoughts.

Creating your list of personal success stories.

Balloon breathing which involves taking in as much air into your lungs as you can and holding it for a few seconds.

The benefits of the siesta.

Your need for a good sleep.

Looking at art is not something I have great patience with, but I’m fascinated with patterns in nature. Here's a look at some natural art that can deepen your relaxation and reduce stress.

Mental imagery to take yourself away from a stressful environment and into one of your own choosing.

How quotes can deliver a quick pick-me-up.

Worrying does nothing for you unless it’s backed up by action and that there can be no action in front of certain types of worry.

Let's take a look at your junk. What do you own? What gives you a good feeling and what doesn't?

The average person watches 5000+ hours of TV in the average life…That’s about 14 years, day and night. It’s mostly negative mind poison that is affecting your life long after you’ve turned it off.

The benefits of taking a cold shower including teaching yourself how to handle and overcome your fear of getting outside your comfort zone.

A simple technique of hand massage that you can apply anywhere.

Foot massage is a great way of pushing some life back into your tired feet. But you also have to look at this, or any other relaxation experience, as a way of retraining your brain to relax.

Acupressure is often seen as a fringe practice, frowned upon by the normal medical heirarchy, if you look at some of the techniques presented in this video, you’ll see that they are some things we already do naturally anyway.

The benefits of taking a bath, of engineering the whole experience so you get the best from it, and putting the whole manly excuse not to treat yourself in this way into perspective.

This little trick of snapping a rubber band against your wrist while repeating a sentence is very simple and very useful no matter what type of moaning thinking you’re doing.

Get some sun onto your back.

Just getting up a doing something can alter your brain chemistry, change your mood, help you to think clearer, and lift your spirits.

Here's some simple forms of moving on the spot from just lifting yourself up and down onto your heels to jogging on the spot and stationary lunges.

Running is another form of motion where you don’t need a lot of gear or experience. You just need to persevere and follow a good plan.

How can you pack a healthy exercise routine into just 7 minutes.

The benefits of using a punching bag.

Get away from the stresses, temptations, and triggers that clutter your everyday life.

Shinrin-Yoku or forest bathing. Just get away from it all into the natural sounds and smells of nature.

Look for new adventures, look for new places, people, experiences, or find new ways to look at your old experiences. Once you look at life through this lens, everything can offer something new.

Finding flow in your life through crafting and DIY.

Reading is the ultimate form of relaxation, at least for me. It never takes me very long to relax once I have opened the cover of a book. Even the smell of a book relaxes me. My only trouble is knowing when to put it down.

Watching movies, going to the movies, taking the movies home with you.

Learning a new language can improve your brain performance in so many ways including your memory, communication, and understanding. When you learn to speak a new language, it opens your mind to a different way of thinking and a different culture.

There’s nothing inherently wrong in taking yourself to a restaurant or theatre. Solitude is good for you and it’s good for your family and friends. Solitude doesn’t mean you have to be on your own. If it’s alright to sit outside a coffee shop on your own, watching the world going by, it’s also alright to take yourself to a nice restaurant and enjoy a meal in your own company.

Take a look outside the box… way, way outside the box. I’m not sure if anyone will follow these suggestions, but it just goes to show that there are always alternative ways of relaxing or dealing with your stress.

Singing not only has the power to make you happy, it can help you have a healthy heart and lungs. As Placedo Domingo says, singing is a great form of therapy, it’s just another tool you have in your arsenal to lift your mood and deal with stress.

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