It has been a long time since I last wrote on homelilys.com. I hope you are doing well and I am sorry that I did not manage to keep writing here. In fact, i was down with Covid for a while and it has not been easy. The effect is long lasting and that is why today I’d like to share my tips on how to control anxiety as I’ve gone through them. Hope you find it useful.
We all deal with stress almost every day due to our hectic and busy routines. According to several pieces of research, around 70% of the adults in the world have fallen prey to stress and anxiety.
However, it is really important to get rid of anxiety and stress before it turns into depression and completely ruins your mental state, which also affects your physical and mental health.
If you are also facing similar situations and want to get relief from your anxiety and stress as soon as possible, here are some practical and powerful practices that can help achieve your goal.
Another one of the major reasons why most people are victims of anxiety and high stress is that they are unable to complete their eight hours sleep cycle because of work, children, or uncomfortable bed space.
Not getting enough sleep certainly leads to continuous mental and physical frustration and cranky behavior. You can start by changing your bed frame and mattress and buying a comfier bed. It’s important that you feel the peak of comfort when you get in your bed. This will help you fall asleep faster.
There are several types of beds for people with different needs. You can read more about types of beds to find one that fulfills your needs. You can easily get a good bed online when you know what you are looking for.
One of the easiest and most convenient things you can do to reduce your anxiety and combat high-stress levels is making exercise a part of your everyday routine to make sure you are using your energy at the right place.
It will certainly help you to have significant changes in your mental well-being by helping your body to relieve physical stress of your body through several different kinds of exercises. You can also go for a walk or run to start your day with a fresh mind.
The reason behind this release of physical and mental tension is that when we exercise, our body releases a certain kind of hormone known as endorphins which tend to improve our mood as well as act as natural painkillers.
Did you know that our eating habits can also have a strong impact not just on our physical health but also on our mental well-being? Yes, it is very much true. If you skip your meals and would not take the necessary nutrients, it can become a reason for messing up your complete system.
This means that it is really essential for you to keep eating energy-boosting snacks as well as healthful foods to make sure you are providing enough energy and nutrients to your body and mind to function in a proper manner.
In addition to that, another thing that you need to be careful about is to reduce your caffeine and alcohol and caffeine intake. There are a number of people who take high amounts of caffeine or alcohol every day, which can aggravate their anxiety as well as trigger panic.
According to several studies and pieces of research, music tends to have quite a positive impact on our brain as it triggers happy hormones or endorphins, which is why it is a great technique to get rid of anxiety and stress.
Since listening to music can have a very relaxing effect on your mind and body, you can use it in your favor to relieve anxiety. You can also listen to a specific type of music that has slow-paced instrumental effects in it that can induce a relaxing response in your body.
This will lower your blood pressure as well as your heart rate and help you to deal with stress hormones in an effective manner. Nature sounds can also be very calming and can be used as meditation music.
Meditation has become one of the most popular methods of stress relief as it helps you to focus on yourself and practice mindfulness to calm down your anxiety properly. You can try different types of meditation exercises to keep your mind off of all kinds of depressive thoughts.
All you need to do is to take out some time from your busy routine and try to maintain your focus on positive thoughts. You can also try different breathing exercises to treat your depression and anxious thoughts.
To create an environment for meditation and positivity, you can light up scented candles around you and practice mindfulness-based cognitive therapy that can help in reducing your stress as well as high levels of anxiety.
Laughing can have therapeutic effects on your mental health as it induces a chemical effect or happy hormones in your brain that are known as endorphins. This is why you can try out different kinds of laughing exercises to relieve your stress.
When you think about it, it is pretty hard to feel anxious when you are laughing your heart out, which is why laughing can also be quite good for your health and helps to reduce any kind of tension and relax your muscles overall.
Furthermore, laughing can also be a great aid to improve your mood and immune system, and according to a study, it has also helped patients with cancer to help reduce their stress levels by simply being distracted by their life.
If you think that your anxiety and stress levels are getting out of your hands and no home remedy is helping you to control your anxious thoughts, then one of the best options is to seek the professional help of a therapist as soon as possible.
They can certainly help you out with their experience and might suggest you take some specific anti-depressant medicines that can help you to maintain your hormonal changes.
Also, talking to a therapist and pouring your heart to him by sharing all your feelings honestly will help you a lot as the therapist will tell you the right method to deal with such situations.
The post Seven Practices to Control Stress And Anxiety appeared first on Homelilys Decor.
When composing wildlife images, photographers usually concentrate on getting tight portraits using long telephoto lenses. That creative approach makes sense, as it brings the viewer closer to the subject. If we only reach for our telephoto lenses, though, we miss the chance to create dramatic wildlife-in-the-landscape images. Wide angle wildlife photos give more of a feeling of place, habitat and context, telling a bigger story about the subject than a telephoto shot can.
To me, this photo in Grand Teton National Park is all about the background. While I could have used a longer lens to get tight headshots of the cow and her calf, by shooting handheld with my 24-70mm, I was able to recompose quickly to include the background as the moose moved through the marsh.
I was reminded of this while shooting a moose and calf last summer in the Tetons. At first, I had the spot all to myself, but it wasn’t long before a few other photographers happened upon the scene. They all chose to shoot with a long lens to get tight shots of the moose. Meanwhile, I spent the entire two hours with the moose shooting handheld with my 24-70mm, realizing that it was the Tetons in the background that made the shot special, and I wanted to tell a story of the place. While I am sure the other photographers got great close-up moose images, I ended up with some of my favorite moose shots of all time.
Don’t get me wrong—I always have a big telephoto in my bag when there is potential for wildlife, but I’m also on the lookout for times when I can shoot wildlife with my wide angle. It’s true that most of the time, tight wildlife shots are going to be the most successful due to dim lighting conditions or the need to isolate your subject from a boring background. But every once in a while, when the situation presents itself with a great background and interesting lighting, I always choose the wider shot. In active wildlife locations, I have even gone to the point of staking out a great landscape scene and waiting for the wildlife to show up. While I may end up waiting for hours, the payoff is worth it when that mountain goat walks into your well-composed scene.
This image was made during a nearly 20-mile day hike through the Glacier National Park high country. While I love how the bighorn sheep gives a feeling of scale to the larger dramatic landscape, the truth is that because I was doing such a long hike, I hadn’t carried a lens longer than 120mm. If I had a longer lens, I likely would have missed this shot. Sometimes limiting the focal lengths you have with you forces you to be more creative.
Call it artistic style, but personally, I have always been more drawn to images that give the subject a place to “live.” We have all seen those amazing tight shots of an animal running or a bird in flight, but without some feeling of the landscape, I find it hard to connect with these images. This has even transferred into some of the adventure photography work I do, where I typically render my subject athletes (runners, bikers, skiers, etc.) a small part of a larger scene. Giving the subject space in an expansive scene creates a feeling of scale and drama.
Perhaps it comes from the fact that I was primarily a landscape photographer for a long time, and thus I tend to build my wildlife images the same way. First, I look at the light to see if anything dramatic is happening. Then, I start looking for strong leading lines or strong foregrounds and backgrounds that create a feeling of depth. Then, and only then, do I start trying to add in the wildlife.
This is one of my favorite locations in Glacier National Park. Not only does it have an amazing view late in the day, but it is also a good spot to find mountain goats. In this case, I was there with a group of non-photographer friends who continued their hike farther, but I chose to find a composition and wait until one of the goats entered my pre-composed scene.
I think part of the reason we see fewer strong wide angle wildlife photos is because shooting wide is far more difficult than shooting tight when you have no control over your subject. When shooting tight, you have the ability to remove distracting elements from the background and focus exclusively on the animal. And yes, while it is far easier for me to create dramatic wide shots of an athlete running through a well-constructed scene when I can ask them to do it multiple times, there sure is something magical about that moose in a pond with a great background when it all comes together.
Thinking back to that moose, in two hours of shooting, I got probably fewer than 10 images that worked out with composition, body position, light, clouds…and of those, really just a couple are true “keepers.” Meanwhile, the long lens shooters probably went home with many successful shots. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make for the chance at something truly special.
One other advantage I may have had that made skipping the tight shot easier was also knowing I already have good close-up moose shots in my files at home. As they say, the more shooting you do, the more good shots you make—and perhaps the easier it is to take risks.
The first step to improving your chances of success with wide angle wildlife photography is being familiar with the landscape and knowing where and when wildlife will be there. Often this is directly connected to a good natural history understanding of your chosen species and its food sources.
I made this image during one of my Alaska Eagle workshops. We were all shooting this eagle pair with our long lenses, but by shooting tight, we were losing some of the drama of the background. By switching from my 500mm lens to something shorter, I was able to make the eagles a part of a larger scene that included more of the background as well as more of the falling snow. While I have the tighter shots in my files as well, it is this wider version that has become one of my favorite eagle images of all time.
When I lead bald eagle workshops in Alaska, we time them to coincide with the last salmon run of the year, so we know the birds will be there and be hungry. When we find a salmon pulled up on the bank or stuck in the shallows, we plan our compositions accordingly by first looking at possible backgrounds and then finding a spot to wait for the eagles to come and play their part as actors on our chosen stage—usually within just a few minutes.
The same principle applies for other subjects as well. Look for food sources, game trails or water sources, stake out a good composition and then wait for the action. The fact is that most of us spend too much of our wildlife shooting moving around and not waiting for the action. Think of a trip to a place like Yellowstone. Most photographers I see tend to drive around looking for wildlife and only stop to shoot if wildlife is close to the road. (I may be guilty of this at times as well.) While this may work alright with large grazing animals like bison, rarely do photographers who are always on the move get well-composed wide angle wildlife shots with great light of more wary, reclusive subjects.
We all see lots of tight shots of the bison in Yellowstone, but to me, this shot is all about the dramatic landscape of the Hayden Valley with a bison to give it scale. I had been exploring and shooting along the road all morning as a rainstorm moved through the park, but when I saw this lone bison walking toward this scene, I pulled over and waited for him. Sitting on a hillside in the rain with my 200-500mm handheld, I was able to shoot several different compositions at different focal lengths as he walked through the field.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is sit down with pair of binoculars and wait. One of my more productive shooting sessions in Yellowstone was when we spent most of an entire day photographing a bison kill. The wolves we had hoped to shoot never did show up, but we had quite a show from the coyotes as they fought over the dead bison. And with time on our hands, we were able to focus on wider compositions in addition to the classic tight shots. While not a true “wide-angle” shot, my favorite image ended up being of a coyote laying down as a small part of a wintery scene.
Lastly, speaking of binoculars: If you are serious about wildlife photography, you need good pair of binoculars. We spend thousands of dollars on cameras and lenses, and it’s amazing what even a $300 pair of binoculars will do for spotting and following wildlife. Someday, I would love to have a nice pair of Swarovski binoculars, but my old, beat-up Nikon Monarchs are still about the best value on the market and are with me every day, whether I am guiding or just shooting for myself.
This photo was made at the end of a great day of birding with friends at Grey Lodge Wildlife Refuge in the central valley of California. Being with a group of non-photographers, I had safely stashed my camera away in the trunk, waiting for just the right moment. Knowing the full moon would be rising at sunset, we drove to the far end of the auto loop, where I could be farther away from the landscape, allowing me to make a “wider” shot using a longer focal length to bring the moon in close and make it look larger.
The post Wide Angle Wildlife appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.
