Belly Dance (Raks Sharki)

I got bored this afternoon with nothing much to do so I decided to try out something new.  I had several things in mind early today but I ended up fascinated with the idea of belly dancing. To cut the story short, there I was, dropping my hips, circling it, rolling it and shaking my thing like I've never done before. Funny, I thought -- I didn't realize I'd enjoy it that much.

Raks Sharki, which is commonly called belly dancing, is a form of dance that is becoming quite popular these days. Many are familiar with it yet few understand the effects it has on the human body. It is based on movements that come naturally to the female form. Though it is called belly dance, I realized that it involves much more than the belly. I was really sweating the whole time. It was a complete form of exercise that can truly benefit many parts of the body. Furthermore, studies show that belly dancing has the following benefits:

• It can improve one's posture and muscle toning.
• It can also serve as a healthy way to lose weight since we can burn up to 300 calories per hour.
• It also helps in preparation for child birth
• Aids stress reduction, and a whole lot more.

With all the things mentioned, I guess Belly Dancing or Raks sharki is truly a fun and healthy way to exercise...

Stress Management

Most of the time it appears to us that there is nothing much that we can do with the stressors that we encounter in life. Everyday, we are bombarded with different scenarios or stimuli that might threaten and disrupt our smooth sailing lives. Problems with family, career, and finances won't simply stop coming and may even become too demanding of us. Human as we are, it is normal to feel tensed, anxious, angry, exasperated, and the like when faced with difficult situations. However, despite every negative effect these things have on us, we should not fail to realize that we have a lot more control of these things than we really think. Realizing that there is something that we can do to alter these unwanted circumstances is the first step of managing stress. 

Stress management is being able to maintain control when situations, people, and events make excessive demands. With this, many people would resort to different strategies and techniques to cope up with stress. Taking time to relax for example is one of the things we can do to save ourselves from a very stressful incident. Meditation and deep breathing exercises have also proven to help clear the mind of disturbing thoughts. In addition, taking a short trip or a vacation would also allow us to escape our routinary lives. Getting enough sleep can also be considered another management strategy since the lack of it would only aggravate stress. 

Moreover, being able to accept and realize a stressful event and how we got ourselves into it is a powerful technique in gaining control over stress. In this way we are removing the blame from any external factor and would therefor allow ourselves to realize that we are responsible for the things that happen to us. Realizing this fact would then lead us to take action of the situation and think of ways to get ourselves out of it. Lastly, changing  our thoughts would surely help us evade and transform a negative event to a positive one. The more we think in negative ways the deeper our suffering becomes. In contrast, if we view a failure as a challenge, not only did it make the rejecting incident a good stressor but also directed us to take action and manage the situation.