Tips on How To Stop Stress And Anxiety
Identifying stress symptoms is not difficult. Since stress is a normal part of our lives, there is no challenge in determining when we are stressed. The real challenge comes in finding ways to manage our stress so it doesn’t interfere with our productivity and quality of life. As stress is considered a big issue for almost everyone, numerous studies have been conducted in pursuit of the magic formula that would help a person be stress-free.
If you suffer from stress and anxiety, you probably want to avoid future run-ins with these problems. Since stress is inevitable, you can learn to cope with it in a functional, healthy way.
Know the Symptoms
Before we can talk about ways to combat stress, you have to learn to recognize your body’s cues that it’s experiencing too much stress and its resulting anxiety. Pay attention to things like feelings of restlessness, fatigue, anxious thoughts, and muscle tension. Once you learn to recognize the stressful trend, you can stop it before it takes hold.
Now, you can try any, or all of these tips to stave off stress and anxiety before they catch up with you.
Move it! Exercise
Exercise is popular for people who want to maintain a healthy and fit body. The good news is that it also helps maintain a healthy mind. Exercise is one of the most efficient stress-reliever according to the National Health Service (NHS) and Mayo Clinic. Aside from taking good care of your heart and oxygen circulation, exercise also gets rid of stress hormones and releases endorphins which are also known as “happy hormones.” Endorphins, commonly called brain chemicals, profoundly affect your mood and response to stress. “Happy hormones” help you have more energy and a positive outlook in life.
If you choose to exercise, make sure that it is something that you love to do so you don’t get bored while doing it. Some good examples of exercise include walking, running, dancing, cycling, boxing, and swimming. Team sports such as basketball, volleyball, tennis, and badminton are also other forms of exercise.
Exercising with realistic goals is also important. You don’t want to bring on anxious feelings by “failing” at an enormous exercise goal like running a marathon right away when you’ve never run before.
Don’t forget to keep your goals realistic. I’ll keep with running as an example if you chose to use a running track, begin by doing a quarter-mile once, then walk another three laps. This small achievement will boost your confidence and give you a sense of accomplishment.
Good Nutrition
Don’t wait until you feel stressed or anxious; like good nutrition, make exercise a part of your regular routine.
Nutrition is one of the most important and effective means by which you can cope with stress and anxiety and prevent them from taking over your life. Some nutrients and foods that are good for proper brain and body function are:
- Essential Fatty Acids Found in olive oil, salmon, flax seeds, and other unrefined vegetable oils should be sought out and deliberately included in the diet.
- Vitamin D: This vitamin plays a significant role in mood regulation. It has been used to treat people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
Rest
Getting adequate sleep is essential for helping your body cope with stress. Everything seems bigger, scarier, and more worrisome when you are exhausted.
Positive Self-Talk
You may need help in learning how to break negative self-talk patterns. Many of us have developed patterns of thought that automatically involve self-abasement. For example, if you make a mistake on a piece of paperwork, your mind may automatically begin “beating you up,” and you’ll have thoughts that you can’t do anything right, you are terrible at paperwork, and so forth. Learning to recognize this pattern and redirect your thoughts to more positive ones can help prevent further stress and anxiety.
Make it Write!
According to Harvard Medical School, writing is a great stress management activity. It may be one’s form of release as you can write about the stressful events on that particular day. Aside from this, it may also be done as a metacognitive process where you can observe the things that stress you out, how you react to them, and in the end, develop a solution that would change your behavior and reaction towards these stressful elements.
Live, Laugh, Love
Laughter is the best medicine – this adage will never get old and will never lose its truth. Laughing works wonderfully in improving your “mental load” and your body’s response to stress. It definitely helps when you watch a TV comedy, or comedy movie, share jokes with a friend, read jokes, and behave like no one’s watching once in a while!
Connections, Connections!
While you would prefer to be alone whenever you feel stressed out, what you should actually do is the opposite. Try going out with friends to unwind. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you feel your stresses ebb away.
While being with other people may not sound pleasant when you’re in a “bad” mood, it actually provides distraction. Besides, being with friends and family – the people who love you unconditionally – will most definitely elicit a few smiles.
Another thing that will reduce your stress is to volunteer. It’s always a satisfying feeling when helping others.
Deep Breathing
It may seem silly to focus on breathing as part of preventing stress and anxiety. Everyone knows how to breathe, right? Yes, everyone knows how to breathe, but few people know how to breathe properly. Deep breathing is the deliberate taking in of breath that helps focus your thoughts and energy in the moment. It also promotes the circulation of oxygen throughout the body. Exhaling deeply and fully is also important, as this more thoroughly eliminates toxins from the body.
Meditation
Meditation is perhaps the most popular stress-reliever. The state of just being quiet and in the moment helps me to regain balance and overcome stress always works for me. I‘ve been meditating daily, for almost five years, and find that I experience less tension in my body and mind. Achieving inner peace may take a lot of practice but, once done, you’ll realize that it is worth it.
Now that you know your quality of life has always been in your own hands, no more excuses!
Exercise, writing, laughing, deep breathing, and meditating are such easy, low-cost techniques to head off stress and anxiety — that they are worth a try! Aren’t they?
“Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.” — Lord Byron
Meditation is a habit that may come easily to some. I have been meditating for over five years, but there were many days I found myself slipping, especially when I was stressed out. I learned to better understand and manage my stress after I read “7 Days of Self Care Free” Private Label Rights (PLR) content from Susanne Myers and Tracy Roberts. You, too, can get it at no cost here.
If you’re interested in revitalizing your life through meditation and would like to learn a virtually risk-free, and cost-effective practice, that people of all ages can do with a little patience and guidance and that will serve you for the rest of your life, I would love to connect with you. You can connect with me here.
I’m Donna SLam, who loves to blog about how meditation brings self-compassion, peace of mind, and clarity to my life and others by sharing tips and strategies to live a fulling and purposeful life. I enjoy championing others to lead a healthy and happy life through meditation, walking, self-development, and spending time with loved ones.
Follow me on:
