Stress Relief With Stress Balls and Chinese Harmony Balls

A stress ball is a soft toy that fits in your hand so you can squeeze it. Stress balls come in many shapes and sizes and even many materials. {Image on right is from Wikipedia}

The basic idea behind a stress ball is that by squeezing it you tense and relax your hand and wrist muscles. By tensing and relaxing your hand muscles you can begin to feel more relaxed. It also helps that you have many nerve endings in your hand that extend to your whole body as squeezing a stress ball massages these nerve endings which has effects like acupressure (the massage version of the more famous acupuncture – acupressure is acupuncture without needles).

You can use your stress ball for a simple progressive relaxation exercise that you can use to relax your whole body. All you have to do is that each time you squeeze the ball you also tense another muscle group in your body like your arm, leg or foot. Then when you release the stress ball you also relax the other muscle group that you tensed up. Do this for every muscle group in your body, while sitting in a chair or laying down, and you will feel much more relaxed than you were before.

Stress balls are a modern invention. Yet it is not a new one. The Chinese have been using light weight iron balls for relaxation and stress relief since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Yet these are not exactly like stress balls as you don’t squeeze them but revolve them around in your hand.

According to Chinese medicine there are channels of energy that flow from your hands throughout your body. By massaging the pressure points associated with these energy flows (same points as acupuncture) you can improve your health and well being. Modern science has confirmed that nerve endings from all over your body are connected to your hands. That is why hand massage (and the eastern method of ‘Reflexology’) are used commonly in massage parlors as part of their stress relief massage program.

At the very least it relaxes the hand with the exercise of rotation and has a soft chiming type of sounds which are beautiful and has a very calming influence.

To use these balls you place 2 of them in your hand and circulate them around your hand with your fingers. You are also supposed to relax and breath deeply and evenly as a kind of soft meditation.