Stress, whether it’s over something small or something big, is a part of life. At any point in time, it’s natural for one to experience any kind of stress, whether it’s over health issues, financial constraints, relationship obstacles, or simply the fear of growing old.
On a daily basis, both large and small issues can trigger stress. Even something as minute as facing stagnant traffic in the middle of the day can make someone stressful.
Ongoing stress is the root cause of many health problems, including mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure and heart attacks, gastrointestinal problems, and diabetes.
While stress itself is inevitable, how to handle it isn’t. It’s imperative to learn how to cope with stress before it has severe effects on your health. Hence, are six ways that’ll help you reduce stress and recover from it:
Slow Down
While our bodies and our brains are designed to face acute stressors, they’re also designed to need breathers once that occurs. Taking time off to relax, sleep, or eat is essential to staying healthy.
Our busy lives today, unfortunately, rarely allow those periods of recovery. However, it’s essential to make time for your health and take 5-10 minutes of mental breaks during the day to reset your body and relieve your body of any tension.
During this period, take a couple of deep breaths and question yourself on what’s currently the best thing for you and then take that route. This is an excellent way to introduce mindfulness to your life. Additionally, if you’re making good progress with this, you should consider learning how to meditate since that helps you deal with stress more effectively and lower your blood pressure, too.
Go For Exercise
Research suggests that aerobic exercises, such as running, walking, or swimming, have many stress-relieving advantages. Not only do exercises improve your mood, but it also improves your focus, sleep cycle and mental responsiveness, overall giving you a much-needed confidence boost
Exercise also plays a large role in reducing your blood pressure and maintaining or lowering, weight, thereby reducing the harmful effects stress has on your health. Chronic stress ages you more quickly, as is evidenced by shorter brain telomeres. However, taking out time for exercises a few days every week can reduce this impact on your body.
Reconnect With Nature
Spending time in nature is an excellent way to reduce anxiety and stress since it improves your mood and boosts feelings of wellbeing and happiness. Regardless of what you call it – ecotherapy, mindfulness in nature, forest bathing, or green time – human beings are meant to spend time outdoors and giving your brain that period to go back to its root helps.
Hence, you should consider adding a daily walk on a hiking trail as part of your regime. Additionally, instead of going to the gym you can go cycling in the park. Lastly, skip the big hotel on your next getaway and consider going glamping instead.
Get Acupuncture
Using acupuncture to reduce stress is a great idea since it improves body functioning by rectifying organ imbalances and blockages. It impacts stress through the release of endorphins, which are the natural painkiller chemicals present in your brain. It naturally improves blood circulation in the body and increases oxygen in tissues.
Many people experience relaxation once the first needle is inserted and even feel miles better after their first acupuncture session. It has a calming nature that decreases your heart rate, reduces blood pressure, and relaxes your muscles.
Use Hemp Oil
While there are countless benefits of hemp oil, it is also widely believed to prompt the release of pleasure hormones in the body. These hormones are potent in reducing anxiety and stress and induce feelings of calm and happiness. It’s also proven to affect the basolateral amygdala receptors that our bodies contain to help process sensory information.
Moreover, regularly using hemp oil reduces cognitive impairment and its anti-inflammatory properties help alleviate the effects stress has on our arteries and heart.
Smile
As surprising as it is, smiling – even fake smiles, teaches your body how to reduce stress. In a study conducted at the University of Kansas, researchers used chopsticks on their subjects to arrange their mouths into either neutral expressions or fake smiles.
One-half of subjects in the smiling group weren’t aware they were smiling while the other half was told to smile, and hence were using their eye and mouth muscles to smile genuinely.
Both groups that were smiling had a reduced heart rate than the group that had neutral expressions after completing a stressful task. In fact, the group that had genuine smiles had the lowest overall heart rate, proving that activity for your facial muscles sends messages to your brain that can affect your mood.
Disconnect From Everything
At the end of a stressful week, it’s natural for it to take a toll on your mind and body. Due to this, it’s essential to recover physically and mentally, and one of the best ways to do this is to unplug. Turn off your computer and television, stop checking your emails and put your phone on silent.
Take a break from your social and work obligations and cut yourself off from unnecessary noise, such as news, ringtones, radios, and music. These distractions occupy most of our days and tend to clutter our brains. Even a few minutes of silence from these distractions can have a significant impact on your mental health. This period is the perfect time to practice yoga, take a walk, read a book, or just lie down. A hot bath, light physical activity, and wearing comfortable all help you unwind and relax.
By making active efforts not to let stress get to you, you’ll experience an increase in productivity as well as an increase in the satisfaction you get in daily tasks. Remember, stress is natural; it’s how you handle it that’ll determine the course of your life.
Do you have any other suggestions on how to recover after a stressful week? Sound off in the comments below!
