How To Manage Stress Naturally

Shoulder Well Pressure Point

The shoulder well is located at the edge of your shoulder, halfway between your shoulder point and the base of your neck. To use this pressure point:

Applying firm touch to the shoulder well pressure point can help relieve stiffness in your neck and shoulders, relieving neck pain and preventing headaches caused by this kind of sensation.

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Take Some Deep Breaths

When anxious, our breath becomes rapid and shallow. Deep belly breathing helps decrease anxiety by stimulating the bodys relaxation response, lowering our heart rate and blood pressure. Its a powerful technique that works because you cant breathe deeply and be anxious at the same time. There are many variations to try, including this simple exercise: Inhale deeply for a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 4. Repeat several times.

Create Obstacles And Rewards

If you tend to pick up your phone when youre supposed to be working, turn off your phone and put it somewhere out of sight before you get started with the day.

Make sure to reward yourself for your efforts, too. After you get a good chunk of work done, take a break to watch a funny video, catch up with your friends, or swap selfies with your partner.

Thinking in terms of rewards rather than punishments can help you encourage yourself, too.

• Instead of: If I dont work out tonight, I cant watch the next episode of Lucifer.’
• Try: Ill go for a jog after work, and then Ill watch an episode of Lucifer before bed.

If youre a long-time procrastinator, breaking the habit may require a little extra support.

Connecting with a therapist may be a good next step when procrastination:

• affects your performance at school or work
• creates problems in your personal relationships
• leads to feelings of stress, anxiety, or depression, or makes existing symptoms worse

A therapist can help you identify and explore possible emotional triggers. They can also provide more insight into any underlying mental health concerns contributing to procrastination.

In therapy, you can also learn strategies to challenge negative self-talk and reframe unhelpful thought patterns.

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• Frequently Asked Questions

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Procrastination As A Contributing Factor

Heres the thing about procrastination: The negative emotions you associate with a given task dont go away when you avoid that task. They feed on themselves and grow, rapidly.

Say you put off creating a work presentation. You want to impress your boss, but youre worried about meeting their high standards.

Of course, the more you delay, the less time you have to do the work. As the deadline approaches, you dont just doubt your ability to create a successful presentation. You also feel overwhelmed about the amount of work involved, and youre stressed at the thought of not getting it done in time.

You know youve created a sticky situation for yourself, but you care more about the peace of mind that avoiding the project provides. Its this fleeting peace that generally reinforces the procrastination loop.

Ask yourself: Do you actually feel calm? Probably not. Youve likely noticed an undercurrent of anxiety rippling through your waking thoughts.

And therein lies the rub. Procrastination creates a cycle thats difficult to escape, because the temporary reward of putting something off reinforces your desire to do it again even though it creates more problems.

A procrastination habit can eventually complicate the emotional concerns that triggered it in the first place.

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Coping With Stress Long Term

Occasional stress isnt something you have to worry about some seasons of life are harder than others. But if youre stressed for long periods of time, it can impact your overall health.

For example, stress can increase your risk of heart disease or worsen existing heart conditions. It can also impact gastrointestinal issues, mental health problems, and skin conditions. And for women specifically, stress can disrupt their menstrual cycle to cause period irregularity, heavier period flow and more.

If you suspect you might be dealing with chronic stress, it could be time to visit your primary care physician. Theyll be able to help you identify symptoms and determine next steps.

Make Time For Leisure Activities

Leisure activities can be a wonderful way to relieve stress. Yet, many people feel as though their lives are too busy for hobbies, games, or extra fun.

But building time for leisure into your schedule could be key to helping you feel your best. And when you feel better, you’ll perform better, which means leisure time may make your work time more efficient.

Whether you find joy in caring for a garden or you like making quilts, hobbies and leisure are key to living your best life.

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Tip #: Get Enough Sleep

Another natural way to manage stress is to make sure that you get enough, but not too much sleep. When we dont rest enough at the end of our day, our body can tense up and it leads to irritability and depression. And when were irritable or depressed, were stressed.

On the other hand, that doesnt mean you should sleep for an incredibly long time.If you sleep longer than your body actually needs, then you can become sluggish and listless which can also lead to stress when youre unable to meet deadlines, get through your personal to-do list or simply feel down that you arent being productive.

Oversleeping can make you just as irritable and stressed out as not getting enough sleep.To determine just how much sleep your body needs, its important to establish a regular sleep schedule, even on your days off.

It will force your brain to go into shutdown mode at the same time every night, regardless of what you have planned for the next day. Once you make this change and catch up with your sleep, youll find that youre less stressed, and overall, much happier.

To establish a regular sleeping pattern, youll just need to do a few things each and every day. First, youll want to avoid any exercise about 2-3 hours before your scheduled bedtime.

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As mentioned earlier in this article, exercise creates endorphins that give us energy. And while thats a good thing, you want to give your body adequate time every night to wind down.

Healthy Ways To Handle Lifes Stressors

When stress becomes unmanageable, try these evidence-based tools to tackle it in healthy ways.

Healthy ways to handle lifes stressors.

Stressful experiences are a normal part of life, and the is a survival mechanism that primes us to respond to threats. Some stress is positive: Imagine standing in front of a crowd to give a speech and hitting it out of the park. Stressful? Certainly. But also challenging and satisfying.

But when a stressor is negative and cant be fought off or avoided such as layoffs at work or a loved ones medical crisis or when the experience of stress becomes , our biological responses to stress can impair our physical and mental health.

Fortunately, there are many evidence-based tools to help combat the negative effects of stress in healthy ways. They recommend that you:

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What Are The Symptoms Of A Tension Headache

People can have tension headaches once, daily, or off-and-on regularlyand the pain can last anywhere from 30 minutes to a week. This pain often stems from muscle tightness and typically feels like a band is squeezing your head. Symptoms vary, but may also include:

• A dull ache that causes pressure
• All-over tension, pressure, or aching
• Pain thats worse in the scalp, temples, back of the neck, or shoulders

Tip #: End Procrastination

Putting tasks off until the last minute can add a tremendous amount of stress to your life, especially if theyre important tasks with a specific deadline. And while its often hard to get things done in a timely manner, its not impossible with a regular routine.

Whatever tasks you need to accomplish, its important to write them down on a To-Do list or use an online project manager to help you stay on track. This can be for your personal or work life, or you can even have separate lists for both .

Put the tasks that are most important at the very top of your list, paying close attention to whether they are actually of utmost importance or not , and then make your way down the list. Be sure to include due dates, too.

And avoid scheduling tasks back to back, leaving chunks of time in between each one. You can use this time to reset or just do something that you enjoy doing. Its important to feed your soul throughout the day, as thats an easy and natural way to manage stress.

For example, if you are responsible for more than one project at your job, prioritize the one with the earliest deadline and put it at the top of your to-do list. Break it down into segments throughout your day, allowing time for coffee breaks, and some social interaction.

Writers are notorious for producing more words each day by using what are called sprints. This is where they write steadily for 20 minutes, then stop for 5-10 minutes, then repeat.

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Stress Management Isnt Just About Stress Relief

Heres the thing: learning how to reduce stress wont help all that much if you cant keep stress levels low for the long-haul.

Stress has a ripple effect . The key to effective stress management is to help reduce much of this ripple effect. That will ultimately help you to remain calm, think rationally and respond appropriately so that you can more quickly bounce back instead of allowing stress to take control of you and emotionally react.

And thats what control is really all about. Controlling your thoughts and emotions. You cant be in control of your life if you dont first learn to manage your stress levels.

Procrastination And Emotional Regulation

Research suggests that procrastination often relates to your mood and emotional mindset.

In other words, procrastination doesnt happen because youre lazy and unproductive or dont know how to do something . It happens because you dread the emotional distress you foresee.

Maybe you already experienced this irritation and frustration firsthand and dont want a repeat. But you could also have some preconceived ideas about how awful and difficult that chore or assignment will turn out to be.

Either way, you set the task aside, promising yourself to handle it later when you feel better able to manage those feelings.

Sometimes, its easy to see where the distress comes from:

• You put off a quick phone call to schedule your dental check-up, because youre certain you have a cavity or two and feel anxious about facing an afternoon of drilling.
• You avoid calling your sister after an argument, because you know you need to admit you were wrong and apologize.

You might have a harder time pinning down other sources of emotional distress, especially when they relate to ongoing or deeper-seated sources of emotional turmoil.

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Best Ways To Manage Stress

Goal setting and relaxation techniques reduce stress and ease the physical and emotional burdenit can take.

Stressful experiences come in many forms, such as a demanding job, a chronic disease, or an argument with a loved one. But all types of stressorseven stress from positive experiences,such as planning a partycan result in the same physical and emotional burden on health, especially when you’re an older adult. “As we age, our immune systems are less efficient, and adding stress to that can lead to disease progression or the onset of disease,” says Dr. Ann Webster, a health psychologist at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

Simple + Quick Ways To Reduce Stress Naturally

Effective stress management strategies should help you to naturally and quickly:

• Calm your mind,
• Refocus and be more present,
• Be aware of your thoughts and feelings,
• Gain control of your emotions , and
• Stay positive in the face of challenging and stressful circumstances.

This is what enables you to take back control. Luckily, the natural stress management strategies below all help with one or more of these areas.

Here are 20 easy and effective ways to reduce stress naturally, bounce back quickly and keep stress levels low:

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Switch To Different Lighting

Light thats too dim, too bright or flickering can give you a headache. If youre inside and can move away from fluorescent lighting or move to a better lit area with natural lighting, thats ideal. If youre outside in the sun, sometimes the consistent brightness of the sun can cause a headache and heat can make that worse. Go find some shade or go inside for a little while and see if that does the trick. Then, go back outside with sunglasses on and try to work in a more sheltered area, if possible. If youre working on a computer in a dark room or trying to read in dim lighting, turn on another light or move to an area that is brighter. Sometimes we dont even realize we need more light until we find ourselves squinting and moving closer to what we are trying to read and feel the very beginnings of headache pain coming on.

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Spend Less Time Scrolling

While we may compulsively turn to our phones in times of stress in an effort to relax or escape discomfort, its more likely that constant access to social media is more harmful than good. Some apps like mindfulness practices and exercising tracking have sure perks, they can also be a gateway to unhealthy scrolling.

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Tip #: Reduce Caffeine Intake

Many adults are self-professed caffeine addicts, and studies now show that coffee does come with some health benefits. But as with everything in life, moderation is key.For some people, caffeine may not be a good idea at all.

Everyone has a different caffeine threshold, right? Some people can handle a lot, some just a little, and some not at all. It all comes down to your bodys overall chemistry.Reducing your caffeine intake, be it in the form of coffee or other high caffeinated beverages, is a natural way to reduce and manage stress.

Just as many of us need caffeine to function after waking up, too much can make us jittery and scatterbrained.

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If youd like to try cutting back on your caffeine intake, its important to do so in moderation. Caffeine can be addicting, and going cold turkey can lead to withdrawal symptoms.

Try cutting back just one cup a day and see how you feel. Depending on the outcome, keep doing this until you find your threshold. Who knows, you may find that you dont need caffeine at all!

Here Are Some Stress Relievers:

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Chronic Stress And How To Manage It

Everyone seems stressed these days. From the current pandemic to economic pressures, racial unrest, political tensions and natural disasters, the start of the new decade has seemed to throw one stressor after another.

At some point, that stress may become something you cant simply shake off: Experiencing stress over an extended period may indicate that stress is chronic.

Chronic stress can take a toll on your mind and body. Fortunately, there are things you can do to back on the path to mental and physical wellbeing.

Natural Remedies For Anxiety

Natural remedies for anxiety are those that donât involve conventional medications . They include things such as herbs, aromatherapy, and performing certain actions that promote relaxation. Some people with anxiety use natural remedies alongside conventional treatments to find relief.

Examples of natural remedies for anxiety include:

Exercise isnât just good for your physical health itâs also beneficial for your mental health. While the connection isnât well understood, studies do show that exercise can help to alleviate symptoms of anxiety.

Getting active helps to take your mind off of the issues bothering you. It also triggers your body to release endorphins, which are natural feel-good hormones.

Herbal Remedies

Several different herbs and herbal supplements may help alleviate anxiety symptoms, helping you to relax and feel calmer. Some of the more well-known varieties include:

Studies show that chamomile can help with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. While many of the studies on herbal supplements for anxiety are limited, the results are promising.

You can find many of these supplements in capsule form. Many people also drink herbal teas to help them relax.

Aromatherapy involves the use of essential oils to improve health and overall well-being. Many scents can help to boost your mood, help you relax, and reduce anxiety.

Scents to use for anxiety include:

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