Tip : Recognize When Youre Stressed
It might seem obvious that youd know when youre stressed, but many of us spend so much time in a frazzled state that weve forgotten what it feels like when our nervous systems are in balance: when were calm yet still alert and focused. If this is you, you can recognize when youre stressed by listening to your body. When youre tired, your eyes feel heavy and you might rest your head on your hand. When youre happy, you laugh easily. And when youre stressed, your body lets you know that, too. Get in the habit of paying attention to your bodys clues.
Observe your muscles and insides. Are your muscles tense or sore? Is your stomach tight, cramped, or aching? Are your hands or jaw clenched?
Observe your breath. Is your breathing shallow? Place one hand on your belly, the other on your chest. Watch your hands rise and fall with each breath. Notice when you breathe fully or when you forget to breathe.
Get Your Green Tea On
This herbal tonic gives you the benefits of L-Theanine, a chemical that can help reduce the bodys stress responses White DJ, et al. . Anti-stress, behavioural and magnetoencephalography effects of an l-Theanine-based nutrient drink: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial. DOI: 10.3390/nu8010053 . Plus just staring at a mug of the green liquid on your desk might calm you, too, thanks to the earthy colors ability to soothe vKurt S, et al. . The effects of color on the moods of college students. DOI: 10.1177/2158244014525423 .
Get Your Head Below Your Heart
Put your head between your knees, or stand and hang your head and arms toward your toes. Getting your noggin below your heart has restorative effects on the autonomic nervous system , lessening your reactivity to the fight-or-flight response Papp ME, et al. . Increased heart rate variability but no effect on blood pressure from 8 weeks of hatha yoga a pilot study. DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-6-59 .
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Get Rid Of Anxiety Today
Anxiety seems to be a part of life in todays world: all of us have felt it at some point in our lives before an exam, the first day at a new job, or even before a date. But if your feelings of nervousness and doom are not sporadic and get in the way of your daily tasks, there are some natural remedies and changes in lifestyle you can adopt to take control of your life and improve your mental health.
Dont let anxiety run rampant in your life. Get moving and exercise at least 10 minutes a day, re-evaluate your caffeine intake, adopt a healthy sleep routine, take the health supplements you need together with treatment prescribed by your doctor, and soon youll see how your anxiety decreases to manageable or almost non-existent levels.
And if you are interested in knowing what other types of health supplements you can take to manage your anxiety storm, take our free Comprehensive Health Assessment and discover them!
How Can I Relax Fast
If youre feeling very stressed or panicked and need to calm down quickly, we recommend progressive muscle relaxation. Its proven to lower your heart rate, helping you to feel more at peace.
To do progressive muscle relaxation, begin by tensing the muscles in your forehead and then releasing them. Do this with each muscle group all the way down to your toes.
If you prefer to do something different, you can also try breathing exercises to calm down quickly. Even taking a couple of long, deep breaths is enough to slow your heart rate and help you feel more relaxed in the present moment.
You can also try a quick meditation to regain your sense of calm. We recommend this five-minute session to help you chill out.
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Exercise But Not Too Much
Depending on the intensity of exercise, it can increase or decrease cortisol.
Intense exercise increases cortisol shortly afterward but will decrease a few hours later. This short-term increase helps coordinate growth of the body to meet the challenge. Additionally, the size of the cortisol response lessens with routine training .
Regular exercise has been shown in numerous studies to help improve sleep quality, reduce stress, and improve overall health, which can help lower cortisol over time .
Interestingly, regular exercise has also been associated with greater resilience to acute stress and may lower negative health effects associated with stress, such as high cortisol .
That said, overdoing it can have the opposite effect. Therefore, aim for around 150200 minutes of mostly low- to moderate-intensity exercise each week and allow yourself time to rest between workouts.
Summary
Exercising regularly can help you better manage stress and promote good health, which may help lower cortisol levels. That said, avoid overdoing it and aim for around 150200 minutes of low- to moderate- intensity exercise each week.
Tip : Find Sensory Inspiration
Having trouble identifying sensory techniques that work for you? Look for inspiration around you, from your sights as you go about your day to memories from your past.
Memories. Think back to what you did as a child to calm down. If you had a blanket or stuffed toy, you might benefit from tactile stimulation. Try tying a textured scarf around your neck before an appointment or keeping a piece of soft suede in your pocket.
Watch others. Observing how others deal with stress can give you valuable insight. Baseball players often pop gum before going up to bat. Singers often chat up the crowd before performing. Ask people you know how they stay focused under pressure.
Parents. Think back to what your parents did to blow off steam. Did your mother feel more relaxed after a long walk? Did your father work in the yard after a hard day?
The power of imagination. Once drawing upon your sensory toolbox becomes habit, try simply imagining vivid sensations when stress strikes. The memory of your babys face will have the same calming or energizing effects on your brain as seeing her photo. When you can recall a strong sensation, youll never be without a quick stress relief tool.
Take a break from technology
Taking a short hiatus from the television, computer, and cell phone will give you insight on what your senses respond to best.
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Stress Relief Tips For Keeping Your Calm During Covid
Stress Relief Tips for Keeping your Calm During COVID-19 Quarantine
The outbreak of the coronavirus has caused a very stressful environment not only are loved ones in danger of being affected, but millions of people have been laid off as a result of the virus outbreak. Being in self-quarantine can be particularly stressful for those who suffer from mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety. However, in this chaotic time, its important to take care of yourself as best as you possibly can. Such a pandemic can cause feelings of being out of control, which can be particularly stressful. Some people may experience changes in sleeping or eating patterns, difficulty sleeping or concentrating during this time. Taking care of yourself, your friends, and your family can help you cope with stress. Here are some tips on how to relieve stress while in quarantine.
TAKE A BREAK FROM THE NEWS
We all know that the coronavirus continues to spread, and it seems to be all that the media is focusing on at the moment. This news can be very upsetting and stressful to hear day after day. Taking a break from social media and the news can be a good way to distract yourself for a while. Its important to take this situation seriously and stay informed, but becoming obsessed with the news regarding the virus can be seriously detrimental to your mental health.
Take a break, the news will still be there tomorrow.
TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY
MAKE TIME TO UNWIND
CONNECT WITH OTHERS
REMAIN CALM
Hydrate With Water And Meditate On Water
During the workday, I will often walk a block over to a creek and follow the subtle current with my eyes. Maybe it is because as infants we emerged from water that it has the power to soothe. Water helps in many ways, writes Aron. When overaroused, keep drinking it a big glass of it once an hour. Walk beside some water, look at it, listen to it. Get into some if you can, for a bath or a swim. Hot tubs and hot springs are popular for good reasons.
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A Stressed Mind Vs A Calm Mind
Stress was never meant to be a 24/7 experience. As Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky explains, youre really only supposed to feel stressed in the five minutes right before you die. When you are being chased in the savanna by a wild animal, your stress response is supposed to save your lifeit mobilizes your attention, muscles, and immune system to get you quickly out of danger. When animals escape, they come right out of fight-or-flight mode and into rest-and-digest mode, where the parasympathetic nervous system is working to replenish their resources.
That stress response is supposed to be short-lived because it wears down your body, your health, and your energy. It also impacts things like your emotional intelligence and your decision making. When youre tightly wound up, you are more likely to react to situations than to respond with reason.
Being able to attend more means that you notice more things about other people and youre able to communicate with them in more powerful ways. High stress and anxiety make us self-focused, for an evolutionary reason: When our ancestors were stressed, it was because they were in a survival situation. It was good to be focused on yourself so you could save your life.
When youre calm, you also manage your energy because youre not burning yourself up constantly, spending your days with your sympathetic nervous system in overdrive. Calm helps you focus on what you need to do and get it done much more quickly.
Tune In And Tone Down
Music really does soothe. When stress starts to get the better of you, reach for the headphones, put on some music, preferably something that has a calming effect, and sit quietly for a few minutes. You can also try listening to nature sounds , chant music, classical or instrumentals to help slow the release of stress hormones. One of my patients who flies frequently on business has what she calls her Turbulence Time playlist. Its 20 or so super-soothing tunes nothing with a fast or aggressive beat come in handy when things get bumpy at 35,000 feet. All she has to do is she hits play and let the calming begin. On long-haul flights, her list also doubles as a sleep aid. Another patient swears by the soundtrack from the film The Piano.
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Sigh To Help Yourself Be Fully Present In The Moment
During the MBSR class, we would take a few mindful sighs between transitioning from one person speaking to another. You breathe in to a count of five through your mouth, and then you let out a very loud sigh, the sound you hear your teenager make. I was always amazed at how powerful those small sighs were to adjust my energy level and focus.
Reassure Yourself About Your Capabilities
One of the sources of stress in the workplace is doubting your own abilities. If this is the case for you, change the self-talk in your own mind about how you perform. Choose to notice the compliments you receive, and the things that you have done well. The more you believe in yourself, the better you will perform.
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But You Can Teach Your Brain That Most Perceived Tigers Are Only Cute Little Kittens
This ability of your brain to adapt to your thoughts and environment is called neuroplasticity. Your brain is updating every second of every day in line with all your thoughts. To prove this to yourself, say your phone number backwards. Initially, this will be hard to do, but if you repeat it a few times, it will soon roll off the tongue. This means that we have an incredible ability to rewire our brains, and we need to take some steps to create the wiring pathways that are useful and healthy for us.
Turning off the stress response is vital for enabling healthy brain wiring and a healthy body. I had two lawyers do my training course, The Switch, two weeks apart, and both of them reported that they felt like they were doing a different job afterwards, just because they had reframed how they approached it.
Chomp Some Chewing Gum
Maybe youre stuck in annoying traffic, frantically cleaning the house before your in-laws show, or hammering out that final term paper. Chewing gum is an easy way to keep the stress monster at bay while potentially boosting your mood and productivity Allen AP, et al. . Chewing gum: Cognitive performance, mood, well-being, and associated physiology. DOI: 10.1155/2015/654806 .
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Tip #: Make Sure Your Pet Has Access To Their Favorite Personal Items
Pets are creatures of comfort, and when your cat or dog are feeling on edge, they like to have a sense of familiarity around them. This means that you might be able to lower their stress levels by ensuring that their favorite items are beside them at all times. This may include their favorite toys, human clothes with your scent on them, or their preferred bed. Pets prefer familiar smells, so choose a toy that has gotten a lot of use recently, and will still have their/your scent on it.
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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Put Your Mental Health First And Listen To What You Need
This is the most important point on the entire list.
That’s why it’s essential to put yourself first and do whatever’s necessary in order to improve your mental health.
Feeling relaxed and ready to go back to work? Be sure to spread some of the best tips on how to de-stress at work with your coworkers in need!
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Shake It Off And You’ll Free Yourself From Fear
Did you know that animals relieve their stress by shaking? Lots of animals like antelopes shake off their fear after being frozen in panic to escape a predator. In the MBSR program, we practiced shaking for about 15 minutes at a time. I cant say it looked all that pretty, but neurologically, I do believe it was beneficial.
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Sweet Words Of Encouragement
How To Permanently Calm Your Stress And Anxiety
What is it like to experience stress and anxiety? Youre on cloud nine in the early morning, feeling like nothing can get you down, then a random thought or an occasion activates a dreadful feeling. Do you know how to calm your stress?
Practically, you understand you should not stress, but you can not obtain your mind to recognize that. No matter how difficult you try, your psychological mind wont listen to your logical reasoning. At that moment, your mind has been pirated.
We all face this at some point. Even if the actual anxiousness passes soon, you are frequently entrusted to that odd feeling inside. You know, that point where you feel like you are expected to feel negative concerning something, even if you can not remember what. Or even worse, you stress over, and anxiety is returning all of a sudden.
Stress and anxiety suck. Yep, it does. So, you need to calm your stress. Ive faced a lot of times myself. As I concentrated on getting rid of these moments, I observed specific assuming patterns that make it possible for stress to surface or develop.
So much as I finished getting rid of fear, below is a malfunction on calming your stress permanently. And much like with anxiety, many of these ideas will appear counterproductive however, that is why they work.
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