Simple Relaxation Exercise

First of all make sure you are as comfortable as possible by loosening your clothes, taking off your shoes and stretching out as much as you have space. The exercise involves tensing and relaxing all the parts of your body from your toes up.

First tense your toes and count slowly to ten before relaxing them again. The sensation should be an enjoyable one when you relax, so take time to make the most of it before moving on. Now do both your feet in the same way and work up to your legs, posterior, back, upper arms, fore arms, hands, fingers, neck and lastly your face.

Whilst you do this try and incorporate slow, calm breathing or integrate one of our breathing exercises below.

Breathing

Breathing is the key to relaxation so here is a little exercise you can use anywhere. To prepare make sure you are sitting comfortably and that your breathing is unrestricted by tight clothing. Close your eyes and focus on controlling your breathing. Take a slow deep breathe in through your nose and count to ten before breathing out slowly (again through your nose). While you do this make sure to focus on the sound of the air leaving your nose.

On your next breathe do the same, but this time upon breathing try concentrating on the feeling of the air moving through nose. On the following breath follow the feeling through your nose down to your lungs. After that concentrate on your lungs filling with air and your ribcage moving up and down. When this is done reverse the order and work your way backwards to the sound of the air leaving your nose once more, and repeat these cycles for as long as you need.

Audio CDs

There are many different styles of audio tape to help you relax, from the sound of water to forests and wales. These really do help which is why they have such a cliche status! Browsing around the net will bring up more then you ever thought to exist. Don't forget these can be put on to mp3 players so you don't need the car CD player to use them. In fact putting on a pair of headphones and shutting your eyes means the sounds of a summer breeze can transport you away for as long as you need.

These work especially well when used in conjunction with the simple relaxation exercise, the breathing and our diet tips.

Diet

Traveling will be a lot easier if you eat properly. Its easy to snack purely on convenience foods, chocolate bars and fizzy drinks, especially from service stations and airports. Its also just as easy to neglect eating meals at all and this is either going to end up in low or high blood sugar levels. Low sugar levels will make you snappy and irritable, where as the other end of the spectrum the high levels can give you a good buzz for a while but you will soon find yourself having a junk food crash, where you then will become, you guessed it, snappy and irritable.

We recommend carrying a bag of fruit wherever possible and drink as much water as is practical. This should cover your snacking needs and means there will be less additives in your blood stream. Also spend time to take a decent meal at least once a day, and do as your mother said and eat your greens!