When we talk about stress balls thoughts often turn to the beautifully decorated Chinese health balls, which are normally found in pairs housed in a richly decorated silk lined box. While the Chinese stress ball pair can be used, and indeed often is used, for relieving stress this was not its original purpose.
Over 2,000 years ago these Chinese balls were used as a martial arts training aid, but were soon in wider use as a health aid, acting through the acupuncture points on the hands to provide a host of benefits including improved blood circulation, and relief of stiffness in the joints and muscle soreness. They were also soon in use as an aid to meditation and to help reduce stress and anxiety.
Making Chinese health balls quickly became an art and, for a while, the beautifully decorated cloisonn? form of these balls (a process in which the design is slowly built up by adding a series of layers of enamel) were used exclusively by the royal family. Today, however, Chinese health balls are in very wide use not only in China, but around the world.
Chinese stress balls come in a variety of sizes ranging from about 1 inch to 3 inches in diameter and exercises are normally performed by manipulating two balls together, first in the right hand and then in the left. As you develop the skill of working with the balls you can move on to working a pair of balls in each hand at the same time, or move up to working with three or more balls.
But the Chinese stress ball is not the only form of stress relief ball available today.
Nowadays stress balls (sometimes written as stressballs) come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and don’t even have to be ‘ball’ shaped.
In addition, they are no longer solid, as Chinese stress balls are, but can range between being very firm (almost solid) to being very soft. Indeed, you can even make your own stress relief ball by taking a balloon and filling it with baking soda!
So how does a stress relief ball work in helping you to reduce your levels of stress and anxiety?
The answer really depends on who you ask.
On the one hand there are those people who believe that it is the physical action of repeatedly squeezing a stress ball that acts very much in the same way as Chinese balls to stimulate the acupuncture points on the hands and produce a physical, and in turn chemical, effect which lowers stress levels.
Others believe that it is the simple fact you are taking time out to work with your stress ball and to divert your mind from whatever is going on around you that calms the mind and so lowers stress.
In reality it is probably fair to say that it is a combination of both. However, if you simply work with your stress ball while continuing on with whatever you are doing, not only is it unlikely to reduce your stress, but you might actually find that your stress is mounting and that you are merely taking some of it out on the stress ball.
The true value in the stress ball lies in using it as tool on which to focus your attention and in taking ‘time out’ to work with your stress relief ball and focus your attention on working with it. It is this diversion of your attention and clearing of your mind, if only for a minute or two, that lets you bring things around you back into focus and to see things in perspective. At the same time you will feel your stress simply draining away.
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