Stress is a natural thing. However, now a days we are experiencing high levels of continual stress. That is not natural. We learned about how stress and disease are so interconnected HERE. Now, let’s review 15 ways to decrease stress.
How do you decrease stress?
- Identify what your stressor is. What is causing all of this stress in your life?
- Get rid of the stressor (the thing/event) that is causing your stress.
- Can you eliminate the stressor in your life? If so, do it.
- If you can’t get rid of it, learn what healthy coping mechanisms mean for you {like talking with friends, family or professionals}
- Practice stress management techniques. Read more HERE for 10 awesome stress management techniques
- Sometimes all you need to do is process the stress.
- This means you can talk it out {friends, family, your pet, a professional},
- Journal about it {old school with pen on paper, or on the computer},
- Pray about it {connecting with God is a powerful thing. Give Him your burdens. And remember, it’s okay to tell Him, “You know, I’ve been having a hard time…”},
- Ponder about it {be still and quietly process out the situation}
- Wash your hands often
- Remember from THIS article how your immune system weakens because of stress.. help it out by washing your hands!
- Eat Healthy foods, and take a multi-vitamin
- Stress increases the amount of sugar production in your body. Help your body out by eating better
- Reduce bad fats and sugar in your diet
- Get regular exercise
- This will help reduce the extra endorphins that are entering your body
- Get the RIGHT amount of sleep.
- That doesn’t mean sleep as much as you can, rather sleep what is appropriate for your body.
- Eliminate (or cut down) on caffeine and alcohol intake
- Because I am a CHES (certified Health Education Specialist) I have the training to know how terrible caffeine is for your body. I have done a lot of research on caffeine and I highly recommend reducing if not eliminating it from your diet.
- Without getting up on my soap-box, the bottom line is that Caffeine is not natural. Don’t put it in your body.
- Be assertive. Protect your time, energy, and efforts.
- Sometimes healthy boundaries are all you need.
- Try to avoid too many changes at one time
- This isn’t always possible, but when you know big changes are coming up, try to “plan” for those changes
- Learn to “roll with the punches” when changes do come
- Keep clutter to a minimum
- Reduce the noise in your life
- A calm life resembles a calm mind
- Learn to manage your time
- Find a retreat if necessary
- This will help you “get away” from the stressor, hopefully. Sometimes we just need a new scene to be able to process out how to get better
- Take a nap
- High levels of stress can cause lack of sleep. Without sleep we can feel headaches, irritable, forgetful, and lack of concentration. Sometimes all you need to do is go to bed. When you wake up, you can go about doing what you need to do to fix the problem.
I believe that a healthy you = a happy you!
Learn more about how stress can lead to sickness here.
This article has been submitted to the following link party: The Happy Home Life
