Everyone experiences stressful situations. Your body reacts to mild stress by increasing adrenaline, which makes you feel more alert and able to tackle problems. However, prolonged stress is very hard on the human body, it can cause you to experience a range of symptoms that including high blood pressure, headaches and nausea. Learning how to cope with stress is essential to your health and well-being.
To handle stress in your life, start by minimizing stress in your life. Something as simple as laying out your work clothing for the next day can give you a better start in the morning; it may give you a few extra minutes to relax as well, instead of running around looking for a stray shoe or favorite blue sweater.
A fantastic way to help you keep your stress levels down is to meditate. There are many different ways to meditate. Meditation is great because it helps you forget about all of your worries for the moment. You’ll be able think more clearly just by meditating a little bit each day.
A good tip that can help you get your stress down is to start making sure you have enough time to get to places. There’s nothing more stressful than arriving late to work or to an important meeting. Making sure you get to places early or on time can help you keep your stress down.
Shake your stress away. Try this quick exercise. Sit or stand, stretch your arms out to your side, and shake your hands for around ten seconds. Shake them vigorously. While you are shaking, do some deep breathing. Just this short little exercise will help to relieve any tension in your back and neck and help to relieve some stress as well.
A great tip that can help you keep your stress down is to get a professional massage. When your stress levels start increasing, your muscles become tense. A thorough massage relaxes your muscles and rubs away accumulated stress.
If you can’t get to the calming beach, imagine you are there. Studies have shown that visualizing calm situations is a great stress reducer in itself. Next time you begin to feel overwhelmed, take five minutes and imagine yourself in a soothing bath, on a sun drenched beach or in a beautiful forest. You may find the stress a little less overwhelming.
Use humor and laughter to eliminate your stress when possible. Although it is not always the best time, if you can look at the stressful situation from a different point of view and see the humor in it, it will help relieve the stress of it. Even if you cannot find the humor in a stressful situation, try to think of a good joke or funny story that you heard and this will help tremendously.
Examine how you deal with stress. Then you can think of ways to cope with it better. Look at how you respond to stress in your life over an extended period of time. Examine your responses and gauge how effective those responses really were. Were they constructive ways to handle things? If you don’t think you handled things well, think of new and better ways to approach the same situation.
Video games are a great way for people to reduce their stress by playing out their aggression through an avatar. They are not just for children anymore and a good competitive game can be just what you need in order to remove your high levels of bad stress.
A great way to lower your stress level or beat it all together, is to find an activity or hobby that you enjoy. Whether it be a reading club, gardening, or bike riding, find something that will give you a place to get away from it all, and just have fun.
If you are really close with a friend, tell them about your problems with stress. It is vital to express the feelings that you have to someone, so that you do not feel alone when going through hard times. Explain what is bothering you and ask their advice on how to ease some of your stress.
There are some occasions that your life could be a bit overstressed because of the lack of balance between the things that you do in your life. If you spend too much time working and getting stressed out about the job, you need to find a way to take some time away from that job here and there.
Prolonged stress can effect every area of your life including your health and relationships. Dealing with stress in a healthy way enables you to feel empowered and in control. It will also help you improve close relationships and reduce the long term effects that it can have on your body.