There are a number of ways to reduce stress. You can read, listen to music, or even play video games. However, according to today’s excerpt…
Reading worked best, reducing stress levels by 68 per cent, said cognitive neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis.
Subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the muscles, he found. In fact it got subjects to stress levels lower than before they started.
Listening to music reduced the levels by 61 per cent, have a cup of tea of coffee lowered them by 54 per cent and taking a walk by 42 per cent.
Playing video games brought them down by 21 per cent from their highest level but still left the volunteers with heart rates above their starting point.
Dr Lewis, who conducted the test, said: “Losing yourself in a book is the ultimate relaxation.
“This is particularly poignant in uncertain economic times when we are all craving a certain amount of escapism.
“It really doesn’t matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination.
“This is more than merely a distraction but an active engaging of the imagination as the words on the printed page stimulate your creativity and cause you to enter what is essentially an altered state of consciousness.”
Source: “Reading ‘can help reduce stress’.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk