Build In Time To Stop & Relax
I often hear my clients say Come on, how on earth will I be able to make time for myself when I have so much to do? and I always reply, ;if you dont look after yourself you wont have the reserves to take care of all the other people in your life you take care of. When our reserves are low were cranky, overly sensitive and generally not as happy as we want to be. So please take some time each day, even if it only 10 minutes, to relax.
- Have a warm bath as this will help your body reach a temperature thats ideal for rest.
- Writing to do lists for the next day can organize your thoughts and clear your mind of any worrying thoughts that pop in to your head
- Relaxation exercises, such as light yoga stretches, help to;relax the muscles.;Dont exercise vigorously though, as it will have the opposite effect.
- Relaxation CDs can help as they use a hypnotic voice to guide you through muscle relaxation and soothing music and sound effects to relax your brain.
- Watching TV or any computer or phone screen keeps the brain engaged and active so it is harder to fall asleep. It is better to read a book or listen to the radio as that relaxes the mind by distracting it from the present worries.
The Good News Is That Being Stressed Out By Life Isnt A Fait Accompli Our Brains Innate Neural Plasticity Equip Us With The Ability To Short Circuit Our Stress Response And Expand Our Bandwidth For Responding More Constructively Calmly And Courageously To Stress Triggers In Our Environment
So whatever stress youre feeling right now, start by noticing the story youre spinning – in your own head or verbally to others – about your situation. Are you talking up the stressors in ways that keep you focused on what you dont want? If so, reframe how youre viewing your situation, adopting language that:
- Reflects belief in your ability to manage whatever youre facing .
- Frames the stressor as a vital stimulus for growth and necessary for you to thrive
For instance:
Im in an interesting situation thats teaching me a lot and building my ability for more inspiring challenges. Ive got everything it takes to figure this out one day at a time.
My son 19 year old son Ben told me that after the last 12 months hes far more confident in his ability to deal with lifes challenges moving forward. In other words: the stress of graduating high school online and starting college in a pandemic have built his muscles for life in ways that will serve him long after this pandemic is over.
The last 12 months have held many stressors. But theyve also taught us that while life can change on a dime, we have the inbuilt capacity to adapt quickly and rise to challenges we might never have imagined, much less prepared for. More so, that in the midst of what might be called stressful situations we can discover strengths and hone talents that may otherwise have lain dormant.
When To See Your Gp About Your Stress Levels
If you’ve tried self-help techniques and they aren’t working, you should go to see your GP. They may suggest other coping techniques for you to try or recommend some form of counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy.
If your stress is causing serious health problems, such as high blood pressure, you may need to take medication or further tests.
Mental health issues, including stress, anxiety and depression, are the reason for one-in-five visits to a GP.
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Ways To Stop Being So Stressed All The Time
Scientist and Yoga Instructor
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Sometimes the world is just too much. You feel like youre just keeping it together, your commitments and deadlines are hanging by a thread, and your mental health is falling by the wayside. You feel like your brain has holes in it; youve got headaches, nausea, and tight shoulders you cant ease; and breathing deeply makes you feel like youre on the verge of tears.
This is normal, but it shouldnt have to be. Stress is an important part of our livesin healthy doses it can be a good motivator, and keep us reaching for our goals. Past a certain threshold, however, chronic stress ages us, makes us more prone to falling ill, increases our chances of gaining unhealthy weight, and, of course, simply makes us feel like were falling apart. So, what steps can we all take to gain control over the stuff thats stressing us out?
Be More Realistic About Your Capabilities
It is helpful to remember that most people underestimate how long it will take to do something, and overestimate how much they can do. This means that they end up taking on too much, and then failing to deliver.
Develop the simple habit of doubling your time estimates for any task.
You are then far more likely to under-promise and over-deliver. This will make everyoneincluding youmuch happier than the other way round .
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Commit To Cultivating Your Personal Wellbeing
When you accept sadness in your life, your personal wellbeing will suffer.
Happiness is more than a feeling; it is a longer lasting state that is called your wellbeing. Your wellbeing encompasses your state of your mind, body and emotions.
When all is in balance, then you will experience contentment and peace of mind. You are more emotionally agile and physically resilient; and therefore more effective at managing the challenges that life will throw at you.
Commit to making your wellbeing your top priority in your life. When you do this you become more effective at managing sadness in your life.
Spend Time With Friends And Family
Social support from friends and family can help you get through stressful times.
Being part of a friend network gives you a sense of belonging and self-worth, which can help you in tough times.
One study found that for women in particular, spending time with friends and children helps release oxytocin, a natural stress reliever. This effect is called tend and befriend, and is the opposite of the fight-or-flight response .
Keep in mind that both men and women benefit from friendship.
Another study found that men and women with the fewest social connections were more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety .
summary
Having strong social ties may help you get through stressful times and lower your risk of anxiety.
Its hard to feel anxious when youre laughing. Its good for your health, and there are a few ways it may help relieve stress:
- Relieving your stress response.
- Relieving tension by relaxing your muscles.
In the long term, laughter can also help improve your immune system and mood.
A study among people with cancer found that people in the laughter intervention group experienced more stress relief than those who were simply distracted (
Try watching a funny TV show or hanging out with friends who make you laugh.
summary
Find the humor in everyday life, spend time with funny friends or watch a comedy show to help relieve stress.
Not all stressors are within your control, but some are.
One way to do this may be to say no more often.
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Manage Your Anxiety And Put An End To Your Controlling Behavior
Are you a controlling person? If so, youre not alone. This has been one of my personal struggles over the years and although I havent completely freed myself of the desire to control things, Ive figured out some ways to keep it in check that Ill share with you in this post.
But before we delve into how to stop being so controlling, lets talk about what it means to be controlling and why we act in these ways.
How To Challenge These Thoughts
During your worry period, challenge your negative thoughts by asking yourself:
- Whats the evidence that the thought is true? That its not true?
- Is there a more positive, realistic way of looking at the situation?
- Whats the probability that what Im scared of will actually happen? If the probability is low, what are some more likely outcomes?
- Is the thought helpful? How will worrying about it help me and how will it hurt me?
- What would I say to a friend who had this worry?
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Put Stress In Its Place
Stress is an inevitable part of life. How you cope with it has an effect on both your physical and emotional state. Here are 10 calming strategies you can use right now to get into a less stressed space and achieve stress relief. Use one of these strategies the next time you’re looking for one of the ways to stop stressing.
How Can We Handle Stress In Healthy Ways
Stress serves an important purposeit enables us to respond quickly to threats and avoid danger. However, lengthy exposure to stress may lead to mental health difficulties or increased physical health problems. A large body of research suggests that increased stress levels interfere with your ability to deal with physical illness. While no one can avoid all stress, you can work to handle it in healthy ways that increase your potential to recover.
There are several other methods you can use to relax or reduce stress, including:
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Worried You May Be Suffering From High Stress
Take our 2-minute stress level quiz to see if you could benefit from further diagnosis and treatment.
If you are experiencing any of these signs you may want to take action to reduce stress today. Here are some simple but revealing questions you can ask yourself to pinpoint areas for improvement or change. Asking the right questions can identify what improvements you can make to feel more relaxed and in control of your health.
How Long Can A Bearded Dragon Be Miserable
However, dont be alarmed and worried thinking that your dragon will be miserable for up to 6 months. Simply getting the right UVB setup and administering medication along with an adjusted calcium-rich and offering a supplement friendly diet can make a huge difference in as little as just two weeks.
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Get Lost In Literature
Research shows that reading is great for your mental health and can reduce stress levels by up to 68 percent. This is because the human mind processes reading much like meditationshutting out distractions, relaxing muscle and heart tension-and focusing attention towards one specific thing. Take some time to get lost in a book and experience this often overlooked form of stress relief.
The Importance Of Managing Stress
If youre living with high levels of stress, youre putting your entire well-being at risk. Stress wreaks havoc on your emotional equilibrium, as well as your physical health. It narrows your ability to think clearly, function effectively, and enjoy life. It may seem like theres nothing you can do about stress. The bills wont stop coming, there will never be more hours in the day, and your work and family responsibilities will always be demanding. But you have a lot more control than you might think.
Effective stress management helps you break the hold stress has on your life, so you can be happier, healthier, and more productive. The ultimate goal is a balanced life, with time for work, relationships, relaxation, and funand the resilience to hold up under pressure and meet challenges head on. But stress management is not one-size-fits-all. Thats why its important to experiment and find out what works best for you. The following stress management tips can help you do that.
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How To Stop Being Angry Stressed Defensive And Sensitive
Do you find your buttons being pushed all the time? Do you feel the world is out against you and you are all alone trying to defend your choices, priorities and opinion? And do you mull over hurtful words of others and take it so personally?
For those of us who made any choices to be different, to walk a path less trodden would enviably face lots of criticism, insults and discouragement. But if you look around, most people who achieve real success in life are those who took the path less taken.
But its still tough, because we would still be one against the whole world. It gets very hurtful especially if the put-downs comes from our family, relatives and our so-called friends. So, how do we trod on?
First, I am sure there are already lots of sites and books out there who teaches so-called success principles using mindpower and belief system. So in this post, Ill leave those out. I want share on a different aspect and I hope you would keep an open mind.
Stressed About Being Stressed Heres What To Do
Whens the last time you thought about stress? If youre like most people, you likely had an easy time answering this question. Whether youre stressed, heard someone else talking about how stressed they are, or saw yet another study about
Whens the last time you thought about stress?
If youre like most people, you likely had an easy time answering this question. Whether youre stressed, heard someone else talking about how stressed they are, or saw yet another study about how bad stress is for you, stress is a subject we tend to talk, think, and hear about a lot.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, all this attention can make us stressedabout stress. And worrying about how worried you are can be dangerous: Research published in the European Heart Journal suggests that people who think about how stress negatively affects them have an increased risk of heart diseaseregardless of how much stress they actually experience.
We cant eliminate every situation or event in our life that makes us anxious. So, what can we do? The key is to manage our response to stress, says meQuilibrium Co-founder and Chief Science Officer Andrew Shatté, Ph.D. This approach allows us to face our stressand live our lifewith more resilience, even when theres a lot going on. Here are four strategies for escaping the stressed about stress cycle:
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Look After Yourself Physically
When you are physically fit and well, it is much easier to cope with stress.
When you become stressed, it is harder to motivate yourself to care about what you eat, or whether you exercise. However, not doing so can also make you more stressed. Get into good habits while your stress levels are fairly low, and you may find that they never go up again. These good habits include:
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Taking regular exercise
Stressful situations increase the level of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol in your body.
These are the fight or flight hormones that evolution has hard-wired into our brains and which are designed to protect us from immediate bodily harm when we are under threat.; However, stress in the modern age is rarely remedied by a fight or flight response. Physical exercise can be used as a surrogate to metabolise the excessive stress hormones and restore your body and mind to a calmer, more relaxed state.
Try to incorporate some physical activity into your daily routine on a regular basis, either before or after work, or at lunchtime. Regular physical activity will also improve the quality of your sleep.
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There is more about this in our pages What is Sleep? and How to Sleep – The Importance of Sleep.
You can assess your levels of daytime sleepiness with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale.
Ways To Minimize The Impact Of Stress On The Body
Whether youre dealing with chronic stress or experience it occasionally on a situational basis , its possible to reset and find a more stable sense of peace and happiness in your daily life.
Treat your body well: It may sound obvious, but its worthy of repeating: Anything that helps the brain and body to have more sustainable energy is going to keep stress reactions minimized, because we can adapt more effectively, explains Hanna. Sleeping at least seven hours at night, eating healthy foods every three to four hours to stabilize blood sugar, and moving at least every 90 minutes during the day to facilitate optimal circulation can reduce the wear and tear of daily stress.
Identify and anticipate your stressors: This may require some introspection, but the effort will be worthwhile. It’s important to be aware of what things create more stress for you, says Hartstein. Is work a place that is stressful? Do you take too much responsibility for things and then not take care of yourself? Knowing what things trigger your stress is really important. If you can do some coping ahead some planning for those stressful moments you can minimize the stress and help yourself through the moments without becoming too overwhelmed.
Even just three to five minutes of slow, rhythmic breathing can start to train the nervous system to be more adaptive.
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