Stress is easily one of the most inevitable parts of life. No matter your age, your job or your day to day life, we all deal with stress at varying levels. Oddly enough, the things that may stress you out don’t determine the level it will stress you out at. For example, a school teacher finds themselves calm and in control when dealing with children but doesn’t care for confrontation. A lawyer may thrive during confrontation and arguments but get stressed around children. The bottom line is, we’re all dealing with stress and need to find ways to reduce it.
Breath work: Learning to calm yourself physically by working on your breathing is a fantastic way to give yourself time to think and collect yourself. The great thing about breath work is you can learn it through other practices like yoga and meditation.
Working out: You wouldn’t initially think getting sweaty and moving your body would reduce stress but getting your mind off your problems and focusing on something you can control, like your body, is very helpful. Not to mention, you’ll be getting healthier and become more attuned with your body.
Changing how you think of food: This can be a bit difficult but as long as you take it meal to meal and aren't unnecessarily hard on yourself, this should benefit you. When we’re stressed or feeling down, we may find ourselves reaching for choices that offer us less nourishment. We can also find ourselves skipping meals in order to make up for those unhealthy meals. First, food is food and your body needs it. If you’re eating less than you should or skipping meals, understand that food can’t be inherently bad or good. Consider finding ways to change your relationship with food. Look into intuitive eating or even start substituting things. Do you like sweet things? Look into more fruits and different ways to consume them. Look at vitamins and supplements and alternative ways to add them into your meals. The goal is to feed yourself but immediately after that, it’s to nourish yourself.
Music: What if I told you that you couldn’t go wrong with music? Music is easily the best way to reduce stress. There’s so many genres, so many moods and so many ways to connect to you on a deeper level. There’s no way to tell someone what type of music makes you happier, reduces stress or gets you out of your head but the great thing is, there’s always new music to explore.
Nature: The best thing about using nature to reduce stress is that it doesn’t always have to be you escaping into the Alaskan wilderness to find yourself. Adding a few more plants to your home, starting a garden and even going to the beach are all ways we can connect with nature. Plants give us oxygen and bring color to our lives. Water is cleansing, refreshing and healing. Nature is great for us on all levels and we should make it a point to touch a plant at least once a week, even if it’s in the produce aisle.
There are way more ways than this to reduce stress and these may not work for everyone but it’s important to find what works for you. It’s important to work on reducing stress because we deserve to be happy and healthy.
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