Life wisdom what stresses you out the most you comment and let me know in this list I'm counting down my top 10 tips for stress relief so favorite this list and come back whenever you're feeling stressed out.
Chances are if you're stressed out you don't think you have any time for stress relief but the fact is we can't afford not to make some time for stress relief while I know it seems really important that we get all of our errands done a life full of stress just isn't worth it stress compromises our immune system so we can actually get sick more often it can cause indigestion and fertility and can even prevent weight loss recognize that stress is going to increase your likelihood of developing chronic disease and just general illness at the end of our life it's going to be a lot more important that we took care of our physical and mental health than if we just got all of our errands done my favorite recommendation for people who don't have time for stress relief is the 1-minute breathwork meditation so you repeat this mantra there will never be enough time for me to get all of the things done that I want to do and that's okay and while it sounds really silly accepting the fact that we're never going to have time to do all the things we want to do is something that we can't avoid and the easier that is the faster that we can just accept that the better we're going to feel so this one-minute meditation you repeat this mantra to yourself just focus on your breath relax one of the most important things for me is noticing the tension in my brow and reminding myself to relax my brow to relax my face relax the muscles that you're feeling tense and if you just start with this one minute per day no more no less than this is a really good way to kind of building little habit of stress relief and everybody has one minute per day to spend on this so that is my first recommendation hopefully you find that helpful again remember the mantra there will never be enough time for me to complete all of the tasks I want to complete and that's okay.
2-Mindfulness
It's easy to spend our lives in a whirlwind of distraction the TV on the radio playing our iPod playing conversations going on in the cubicle next to us etc and when we especially think about being in our car, for instance, you can think about all the distractions of billboards different cars different signs and you get the idea that we're not really focused on anything we have our mind in a lot of different places we're always multitasking and someone left a comment on our site about mindfulness and while there are volumes written on the topic of mindfulness my personal opinion is that this is really just about paying attention so rather than having our attention split between 20 different things we're actually going to focus our intention on what we're doing so this is great because you can actually create a stress relieving practice out of anything that you do just by being mindful about it and I like to use the little acronym Brent to help me remember so that is breathe relax enjoy notice and think so it's about remembering to breathe which is something that we can often just forget to do relaxing our the tension in our bodies as I mentioned in the last tip relaxing our brow and relaxing the tension in our face enjoying the things around us noticing the things around us looking listening being very focused on all of the different aspects of the experience we're experiencing and being thankful having gratitude for the things around us hopefully you can start using Brent in your own life to help make everything in your life a little bit more mindful a little bit more focused and as we put more focus and intention in the things that we do we're not only going to get things done more quickly but as I mentioned before each of our daily activities whether it's doing the dishes making our bed taking a shower those activities can become stress relieving simply by adding mindfulness.
3-Some fun
Have some freaking fun already chances are if you are stressed out you do not make time for yourself to have fun have hobbies and just do things that you enjoy but doing these things is incredibly important to help relieve stress help improve our overall physical and mental health so there's plenty of different things you can do and as always this is about finding the thing that you like to do so you could take up yoga,if you are not ready to go for yoga yet you could take up a new hobby so maybe it's something artistic or creative or you take an art class and meaking massage I promise you if you can find someone to trade a massage with that's going to provide stress relief for both of you so take some time have some fun recognize that it's not just something selfish you're doing this is something that is very important for maintaining your health so go have some fun do something you enjoy and enjoy the stress relief that accompanies that.
4-Know your triggers
My next tip is to start recognizing your triggers so we're all triggered by different things and this tip is about the next time you're feeling stressed you actually stop for a second and ask what triggered this so some common triggers are due dates deadlines traffic jams running late for an appointment maybe having a demanding boss or a demanding work situation family stress etc now we only have so much power in avoiding our triggers but that is one aspect of this tip but the main thing is that we start recognizing our trip triggers and kind of keeping a mental list of those triggers so that we can be aware of them when they're about to happen and so that once those triggers are triggered we can implement the next tip. 5-Stress relief trick So once we have a general idea of what our different stress triggers are then we can begin to implement our stress relief trick and the cool thing about the stress relief trick is that it is different for everybody and the whole idea is that you figure out what works for you so you could do the one-minute breathing meditation you can remember Brent breathe relax enjoy notice and thank you could also do any number of different things so some people will tap on acupressure points maybe it's humming the lyrics to your favorite song maybe it's taking a run around the block or who knows the whole idea is that you figure out something that you like to do something that works for you and that you start implementing your stress relief trick every time you feel stress coming on or once you've already gotten stressed out and over time that will become a habit and will become a habit that immediately starts to de-stress you whenever you start doing whatever is in your little stress relief trick.
6-Limit stress factors
Once we've become more familiar with our stress triggers we can start to recognize other factors that contribute to our stress so a good example for me is hunger I am ten times more likely to get stressed out and upset over something if I haven't eaten then if I'm handling the same exact thing but I have eaten so on the way to dinner I get road rage but on the way home it doesn't bother me so much and my tip here is that I can avoid hunger and avoid the stress that usually comes along with me being hungry by carrying around snacks like trail mix or nuts and avoiding skipping meals another factor that's very common is not getting enough sleep so you'll notice if somebody hasn't gotten enough sleep they'll be super cranky and a lot more likely to get stressed out so as we start to recognize these different factors and recognize that these are things we can take care of there's things we can do to avoid getting super hungry and things we can do to improve our sleep.
Once we've become more familiar with our stress triggers we can start to recognize other factors that contribute to our stress so a good example for me is hunger I am ten times more likely to get stressed out and upset over something if I haven't eaten then if I'm handling the same exact thing but I have eaten so on the way to dinner I get road rage but on the way home it doesn't bother me so much and my tip here is that I can avoid hunger and avoid the stress that usually comes along with me being hungry by carrying around snacks like trail mix or nuts and avoiding skipping meals another factor that's very common is not getting enough sleep so you'll notice if somebody hasn't gotten enough sleep they'll be super cranky and a lot more likely to get stressed out so as we start to recognize these different factors and recognize that these are things we can take care of there's things we can do to avoid getting super hungry and things we can do to improve our sleep.
7-Hormone cortisol
Normally when we think about stress we think about stress as an experience or an emotion that we feel but it's important to recognize that stress is actually a physical condition and when we experience stress it actually turns on an entirely separate part of our nervous system the sympathetic nervous system and basically you can think about in the wild the fight-or-flight response where suddenly you've seen a bear and your fight-or-flight response goes on your body is getting ready to help you run to help you escape that situation so recognize that when we're feeling stressed out our body is physically going through changes so we release the stress hormone cortisol for instance and cortisol is known to inhibit digestion which is why stress can cause stomach issues and digestive issues it also can has been linked to insomnia has even been linked to infertility and metabolic syndrome which is often characterized by excess belly fat and if we can start to recognize that stress oh it's not just some pesky thing that we that we feel sometimes this is actually a physical condition and is very stressful on our body then it's going to help us lend a little more importance to stress relief activities.
8-Other sources of stress
Another aspect of this tip is recognizing that certain things in our lifestyle and environment can also stress our body and stress our organ systems so excessive alcohol stresses your liver a diet of processed foods loaded with chemicals is going to be stressful on your digestive system your gallbladder your liver improving our physical health by improving our diet for instance is actually going to relieve the stress that we feel because our organ systems our overall health is going to be less stressed in general it's also worth noting that the American Journal of Psychiatry has officially published studies that show a diet of processed foods is linked to increased anxiety depression and stress and that a diet of whole natural foods.
Another aspect of this tip is recognizing that certain things in our lifestyle and environment can also stress our body and stress our organ systems so excessive alcohol stresses your liver a diet of processed foods loaded with chemicals is going to be stressful on your digestive system your gallbladder your liver improving our physical health by improving our diet for instance is actually going to relieve the stress that we feel because our organ systems our overall health is going to be less stressed in general it's also worth noting that the American Journal of Psychiatry has officially published studies that show a diet of processed foods is linked to increased anxiety depression and stress and that a diet of whole natural foods.
9-Exercise
Next tip is exercise and I know that everybody hates hearing that they need to exercise so in this tip I'm going to give you some ideas on how you can incorporate exercise into your schedule already so this is without making additional time for exercise so while you are doing dishes brushing your teeth doing laundry cooking dinner you can actually keep your core engaged just keep your ab muscles flexed you can do calf raises or you can do squats you can incorporate movement incorporates a little bit of physical exercise into the things that you're already doing so maybe while you're watching a TV show or while you're watching a movie you're down on the floor doing some sit-ups or doing some of the other exercises, you could also take the stairs instead of the elevator when you're carrying back groceries from the grocery store go ahead and just do a couple of curls with that bag you could turn your stress relief fun activity your hobby into something that's also physical exercise so maybe it's going for a run or going hiking or maybe it's joining a soccer team or an after-school sports team the idea here is that any little tiny a that we can add physical exercise into our lives is not only going to improve our overall health but it's really going to help us not only handle stress when we inevitably get stressed out but it's also going to just lower our overall stress levels and hopefully lend to us feeling a lot less stressed out.
Next tip is exercise and I know that everybody hates hearing that they need to exercise so in this tip I'm going to give you some ideas on how you can incorporate exercise into your schedule already so this is without making additional time for exercise so while you are doing dishes brushing your teeth doing laundry cooking dinner you can actually keep your core engaged just keep your ab muscles flexed you can do calf raises or you can do squats you can incorporate movement incorporates a little bit of physical exercise into the things that you're already doing so maybe while you're watching a TV show or while you're watching a movie you're down on the floor doing some sit-ups or doing some of the other exercises, you could also take the stairs instead of the elevator when you're carrying back groceries from the grocery store go ahead and just do a couple of curls with that bag you could turn your stress relief fun activity your hobby into something that's also physical exercise so maybe it's going for a run or going hiking or maybe it's joining a soccer team or an after-school sports team the idea here is that any little tiny a that we can add physical exercise into our lives is not only going to improve our overall health but it's really going to help us not only handle stress when we inevitably get stressed out but it's also going to just lower our overall stress levels and hopefully lend to us feeling a lot less stressed out.
10-Get some fresh air
Oxygen is incredibly important for our mental clarity and not to mention our overall health and proper functioning of our bodies so just going outside and getting some fresh air getting some sunshine can be a really good way to relieve stress especially if you're somebody who spends many hours at work sitting in front of the computer or sitting in a cubicle just I even have a little timer on my computer that will tell me hey you know you've been sitting here for an hour go get up and walk around and maybe you just go walk around the office and take some deep breaths maybe you actually go walk outside and enjoy the fresh air but the idea here is that we just make time even if it's just a couple minutes here and there to do some deep breathing or to get out in the fresh air if we're spending a lot of our time indoors or we're spending a lot of our time just sedentary that is going to drastically increase the overall amount of stress that we're feeling and the likelihood that certain experiences will really really stress us out so you can remember Brent breathe relax enjoy notice and think or be thankful and use this tip whenever you're feeling stressed out it is completely free to walk outside and breathe some fresh air so I encourage you to do it as much as possible.
Did you know all of this stuff going in leave us a comment let us know what you're thinking and if you like this list.
