This guide looks at a sequence of steps to be more relaxed and prevent stress. This is critical not only from a psychological and ‘mental health’ perspective, but a fundamental mechanism in health and performance. Being relaxed helps you have clarity, focus, energy, freedom, inspiration, recovery, and more. Relaxation in a way is a limitless threshold for improving nearly every aspect of both your life and performance or capacity to do what you want.
Magnesium
Magnesium levels are essential to your nervous and tissues, to keep relaxed and indeed recover after strain or scare. Rather than taking magnesium to reduce stress levels, its important to look at the whole of your magnesium levels, which acts fundamentally to prevent stress in the first place. That is, consider your intake, supplementation, and other sources like bath salts, than taking ‘just taking a capsule or two’ before bed. When muscles are tensed or your nervous system is ‘activated’, they have to relax or calm down after, which magnesium is critical to. Magnesium keeps your brain and body relaxed in the face of stressors, particularly muscles in response to tension; Never getting stressed or tensed is superior to relaxing after the effect naturally. For the average person, 400mg of supplemental magnesium per day is both adequate and arguably optimal for this.
Magnesium = Relaxed Brain, Relaxed Body
Sunlight
Sunlight both immediately relaxes the body, and keeps the body relaxed throughout the rest of the day or following few days. This is achieved through a variety of systems and pathways, with the most notable being sunlight and red lights relaxing or releasing (tension) effect, effects on the nervous system, and circadian reinforcement. The the more sunlight you get, the more relaxed you will be, in a cumulative manner without a ceiling. Aim for 10-15 minutes of moderate sunlight each day. The best or nicest times are in the morning (~7-10am) and the midafternoon (~2-4pm), when the sun is prominent but not scorching.
Sunlight (& Red Light) = Relaxation Ray
Sleep
Sleep of course naturally helps to keep one relaxed and relaxes after a straining day, so this more focused on the aspect of consistency or circadian rhythm than sleep itself. Sleeping relatively consistently helps to establish a circadian rhythm, be clarified as your body and brain knowing when to do what for this context. It goes beyond the typical ‘help waking up and help falling asleep’, with everything in your body and brain being affected, including your muscles and fascia which tense and hold strain within them with a ‘mind of their own’; A circadian rhythm helps your nervous system communicate with your muscles and vice versa, to naturally know when to relax and start relaxing. It also helps ground and center them, that they are more relaxed in effectively the same way that the unknown, random noises, and doubt makes you anxious. Knowing when to do something and what to expect, is fundamentally relaxing to the body and brain.
Consistency = Serenity
Exercise
Exercise releases tension that is engaged in the muscles and nervous system when you get anxious, stressed, or strained. The feelings of anxiety and such accompany adrenaline and cortisol, or the fight-or-flight response. This response is for fighting (exercising muscles) or fleeing (exercising muscles) as the name suggests, acting as an equation or circuit which is broken when you do not exercise those muscles, releasing the tension that accumulates like a spring or elastic to shoot you off. ‘Ending the cycle’ or ‘closing the loop/circle’ are sayings which illustrate this as well, where your body keeps going around and around without that circuit being completed, that adrenaline ever fulfilling its purpose. Like candle left lit, it won’t go out by itself unless it burns itself out, and muscles and the nervous system can get burned out. Exercise also has many other benefits like improving blood flow to the brain, improving hormones, reducing inflammation, elevating mood, and more which help keep you relaxed and make you more relaxed in both the short term or immediate, and long term or distant/consistent.
Temperature
Your body is very sensitive to temperature, or rather temperature affects every part of your body. When you are too cold or too hot, your body starts to constrict and get stressed. In both cold and hot, your body releases adrenaline for physiological responses. As an example, it is known that having cold feet impairs focus and increases restlessness even when the rest of the body is fine, or, that keeping your feet warm and regulated (such as with socks) improves focus, relaxation, and grounding. The human body sleeps best in slightly cool conditions, which mirrors the natural decline in temperature alongside daylight as the day progresses into evening, and then into night. That is, that body naturally winds down in the evening and relaxes into sleep at night as the temperature cools down. Conversely, being warm or ‘too warm’ in the evening and at night can delay sleep or inhibit relaxation. This is part of why we tend to stay up later in summer, and sleep longer in winter, with the feeling of being under blankets in a cold morning and wanting to sleep in. This is also why you get frustrated and strained trying to sleep when it is too hot. By regulating your body temperature and being aware of patterns that affect your temperature and state, you can effectively use temperature to keep yourself relaxed or relax after stress.
Fulfillment
Essentially, the more fulfilled you are and feel, the more relaxed you will feel and the less stress will occur. In the way that psychology and emotions naturally plays a role in relaxation and stress, fulfillment and aspects of life and day-to-day like that will play a powerful and ‘free’ role in that. The easiest way to be more fulfilled is to do what you want to do; This can be hobbies and even following your curiosity, and is a much more day-to-day occurrence than a long-term ‘goals’ and ‘purpose’ sort of thing which can be daunting and unrealistic. If you do what you want each day in various degrees, your psyche, mind, and being will be much more grounded and relaxed, preventing stress of which much comes from ethereal subjects like this. Following your curiosity, pursuing your interests, performing some hobbies, etc. will instill you with fulfillment, which is synonymous with accomplishment, success, and progress, which can be enlightening and grounding for many to consider.
Apex of Men 