Remember the last time you were so stressed that you couldn’t sleep? Stress is one of the biggest sleep stealers there is. Even if you fall asleep, stress can prevent you from entering deep sleep for physical recovery or REM sleep for mental recovery. Experiment with different ways to relieve and release your stress, each day, so that your nightly slumber becomes more peaceful. Try these tips and see how they work for you.
One of the things that you can do when you are feeling anxious is to go to the spa and get a massage. This will help to reduce the amount of knots that you have in your body so that you can maintain your flexibility and reduce the strain that you feel.
Warm up to reduce stress. Rub your hands together quickly until they feel warm. Once they are warm, put them over your closed eyes for about five seconds and breathe deeply. The darkness and the warmth work together to be comforting and help take some of your stress away.
During the course of the day, try to consume at least eight glasses of water if you want to reduce the level of stress that you face. Water helps to reduce the amount of toxins in your body, which can make you feel fresher and more hydrated as the day wears on.
Try to get as much sleep as you possibly can during the course of the day, regardless of how much you have to work. Lack of sleep will result in increased stress levels, which can limit your productivity and hurt the way that you feel. Aim for 8 hours of sleep a night to feel your best.
Learn how to breath fully using your diaphragm. As practice, breath through your nose, and watch your belly increase in size. Hold the breath for a few seconds before releasing. These deep breaths fully oxygenate your blood, relaxing you quite quickly! In fact, it’s been found that the opposite, short breathes, can speed up your heart beat, tighten your muscles and increase your stress!
A great tip that can help you fight stress is to simply say “no” to people when you know can’t put more on your plate. If you have a hard time saying “no” to people, you might find yourself in a tough situation by having to do too many things at once.
Gastrointestinal distress is a common reaction to stress. Acid reflux, a persistent feeling of nausea, and even problems with elimination can be our body’s outward reaction to stress. Reduce the level of stress you are feeling and symptoms such as these will often be greatly minimized or even disappear entirely!
A fantastic tip that can help you keep your stress levels down is to make sure you have good posture at all times. When people slouch, they aren’t getting as much oxygen to the brain and that can make them stressed. Having and maintaining good posture can help you keep your stress levels down.
One easy way to reduce stress is to disconnect yourself from the outside world for a while. Turn off the computer, turn off the phone, turn off the TV and just sit and read a book for a while. The people who need to get in touch with you can wait for you to check your voicemail.
Exercising is a great way to beat stress. Go for a walk or a run, depending on your fitness level, during times of the day you tend to feel the most stressed. It can also help to start your day off with physical activity as this increases the mood boosters in your brain.
A good tip that can help you keep your stress levels down is to simply surround yourself with positive, happy people. Being around negative people all the time will have an influence on you whether you know it or not. Try to be around positive people as much as you can.
If you are fatigued, try to eliminate some of the stress that may be causing it. Fatigue can have a direct association with stress. When you are stressed it is difficult to sleep, even difficult to relax. It is as though your body is constantly fighting a battle with some unseen force. The result is an overwhelming sense of exhaustion.
Walk, bike, run or whatever! Just get out there and do it! A variety of stress hormones and neurochemicals build up in our bodies when we experience chronic stress. Exercise is one of the most effective ways to reduce these chemicals, one of the most effective ways to prevent significant stress-related damage to our health.
Now you should have a few new ideas to add to your “stress management” tool kit. Everyone needs to know different techniques to manage stress, because stress is tricky because the same techniques don’t always work all of the time. Try the above tips and see if they can become part of your stress-fighting arsenal, to help you to better manage daily stress levels.