Relaxing sounds easy, but in practice, that’s not always the case. 

There are a lot of reasons why you might find it hard to unwind: Maybe you feel guilty about taking time for yourself, or your daily life is so busy that downtime just feels impossible. Perhaps you live with an anxiety disorder, or another condition that creates a lot of tension. 

Sometimes, you might turn to an activity that seems relaxing but leaves you feeling more depleted afterward — for example, recreational substance use, or scrolling on social media. But there are lots of stress reduction techniques out there that you may find more restorative.

Below are 20 tips and techniques for how to:

The shoulder is the body's most complicated joint. It's where the ends of the collarbone, upper arm bone, and shoulder blade meet. And it's prone to arthritis (a wearing away of the cartilage between the bones), as well as tears or tendinitis (inflammation) in the rotator cuff — the group of tendons that helps you raise and rotate your arm. Shoulder pain can keep you from being able to raise your arms to get dressed, or reach up to a cupboard or out to a door.

​But an easy way to stave off shoulder problems is to regularly stretch the muscles that support the joints. "The muscles need to be long and flexible to stay healthy. You're more vulnerable to injury when your shoulder muscles are tight and restricted," explains Clare Safran-Norton, clinical supervisor of rehabilitation services at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital.

M.B. is a 39 y/o male who works in marketing, is married with two kids who has been in recovery from opioid addiction for the past 4 years.  When asked about his “secret to success” he explains.  “Four years ago, I hit rock bottom-- I was feeling really depressed and ashamed of how my addiction to oxycodone had impacted my relationships with my family and friends.  But, then I enrolled in a Suboxone program and I started to hit the gym every day after work.”

He elaborates, “Lifting weights helped me get my energy and frustrations out. I would come home so much more relaxed and calm. It became my new outlet for doing well in my recovery.”

​M.B. is not alone.  J.R., a 33 year old waitress also explains how she used exercise as a way to conquer her addiction to opioids.  “When I woke up and before I started my work day, I would put on my headphones and go for a run and get lost in my thoughts. When I was not in the mood for a jog, I would take my dog for a walk.  It was my ‘me time,’  and it helped me show up for work ready to roll, deal with the daily stresses that life brings, and in a much healthier way than using opioid pills.”

There’s no denying that, ever since social networks and social media made way into our lives, everything is different. Beginning with the way we socialize, interact, plan for parties or even how often we go out. We won’t go into a debate regarding the ethical aspects of the way Social Media is influencing our lives. Instead, this article proposes to focus on the numerous ways in which social media is changing the way the education system works. So, stay tuned to find out what effects does social networking have on the way our children are educated both at school and outside of it.

If you want to know more about your cardiovascular health, we’ve got one big question for you: Do you know what your resting heart rate is? 

Your resting heart rate can tell you a lot about your cardiovascular health — and while some of what it says may seem scary at first, don’t worry! There are ways to improve your cardiovascular health. At Tri-City Medical Center, we see patients with high resting heart rates lower theirs to healthier levels all the time.

Here’s a little background on just what your heart might be trying to tell you.

Do these statements sound familiar?

• “I should have trusted my gut.”
• “I knew what was really going on but I didn’t say anything.”
• "I wanted it so badly but I still walked away."

In its effort to protect you, to keep you alive and safe, your brain can keep you from speaking up or getting what you truly want if you don’t know how to listen beyond your rationalizations.
When you face an uncomfortable decision, your brain will spontaneously give you a fabulously credible rationalization for avoiding possible failure, embarrassment, or even minor discomfort. As humans, we are master rationalizers.

If you were to bake a cake, what’s the first thing that you picture? Perhaps you imagine the cake itself, a yummy tower of chocolate with rich buttercream icing on top. 

When setting out to accomplish something, like baking a cake, we often think in terms of the outcome. Instead of savoring the experience of preparing the cake, we create expectations of the end product, missing out on enjoying the process. 

​We often look at our goals in life in the same way. Whether we want to make a big change, or a change happens to us, we visualize the outcome. We set expectations.

​In any discussion of the attributes of successful people, persistence is always mentioned, often as the, or one of the, most important factors in success.

Major success seldom comes easily or without a great deal of effort. Often the only difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is the ability to keep going long after the rest have dropped out.

It’s relatively easy to persist when things are going well and we see progress, but highly persistent people have found ways to keep going despite major setbacks and a lack of evidence that they are moving closer toward their goals.

​Here are some of the things that persistent people have in common that keeps them going long after most people have given up: