“Oh, I’m under a lot of stress!” You might have thought of this again today. We live under so much stress. There’s nothing easy in studying, relationships with people and work. Moreover, we live in a complex modern society and have chronic stress because of complex factors. However, it is important to properly cope with stress because stress brings about physical symptoms such as headaches, fatigue and insomnia as well as psychological symptoms such as depression, anxiety and anger. Let's find out some ways to reduce stress starting now.

< Three Interesting Therapies To Help Reduce Stress>
1) Color Therapy: Color therapy refers to a method of psychological diagnosis and treatment through the transmission of colors. It usually uses red, yellow and blue and each color has an effect that makes people feel rest, vitality, stability, energy, sedation and freedom. Although color therapy has not become popular in Korea, it helps psychological disorders such as depression.
2) Yoga: Yoga is a combination of meditation, breathing and stretching. By controlling the mind, it aims to return to its original serene mind by suppressing the movement of the mind. It helps people relax the tension of the mind and body..
3) Multi-therapy: Multi-therapy is based on Oriental philosophy and Chinese medicine, combining Western philosophy and psychology, which is created by professor Jang Sung-chul. It is a combination of various therapies utilizing a person’s five senses, so people can concentrate and recognize themselves well. It helps depression, stress disorders, headaches and etc.

Using the therapies mentioned above, the city of Seoul has set up a 'stress free zone' in six pilot schools to reduce students' stress. In the stress free zone, students can diagnose their stress and relieve it by methods such as aroma therapy, music therapy, color therapy, yoga, stretching, embroidery, and calligraphy. According to professor Kim Sun-hyun, in charge of the study of this stress free zone, 20 students in one of the pilot schools were surveyed and more than 70 percent of the students who used the space had significant improvements in both emotional and anti-stress indexes compared to before. The city of Seoul said that they have plans to expand the stress free zone project to schools nationwide, if the test results on stress free zones continue to be successful.

Many people have experienced difficulties due to stress, but previously stress was not considered important and the system for relief was deficient in the past. Now, times are changing. Lots of people have recognized the importance of ways to relieve stress. We can't avoid stressful problems in our lives arbitrarily, so we should deal with stress effectively. Thus, social systems such as stress free zones where people can use various therapies are necessary. I think it won’t be long before all students can use therapies in a stress free zone, and hopefully this system would be established in society beyond school.

Shim Hyebeen  ahdishim@naver.com

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