Stress is common in everyone these days. Life is intense, fast paced and there is always an information overload to deal with. Sometimes, we can barely catch a breath.
In order to promote mental health, it is key to learn how to manage stress properly. Seeing that stress is a permanent part of our lives, we need to adapt stress reducing habits. Habits are built through consistency. Making stress reducing habits a part of your lifestyle pretty much sets you on course to make the most of life.
This post provides you with 10 strategies to help you establish good stress reducing habits.
Top 10 Stress Reducing Habits
It’s very healthy to incorporate good habits into your lifestyle. Creating routines helps you to organize yourself. In order to bust stress, you need to implement these top 10 stress reducing habits into your lifestyle:
1 | Take technology breaks
Technology, and social media in particular takes a huge toll on our stress levels. Scrolling through Instagram can increase your stress. When you look at other people enjoying their amazing lives, you feel like your life sucks. Of course, social media is an illusion. Taking technology breaks, or going hardcore and quitting, can save you hours of stressing.
2 | Eat healthy
Stress can be caused by poor eating habits. Eating refined sugar and processed foods leads to inflammations in the gut. These impulses are sent to the brain and translated into stress. When you eat clean foods, you will see a difference in your cognitive power. Eating healthy reduces stress.
3 | Journal your thoughts every day
Journaling is one of the best strategies to help you with managing stress. We can’t escape stress. However, learning to manage stress can help you to thrive despite it. Writing down your thoughts every day can help you to organize them and deal with stress in a healthy way.
4 | Exercise more
Exercise is a great stress reducing habit. Physical activity is important to all of us. It helps to keep our muscles healthy. That’s not all, it keeps our hearts and bones functioning well too. Exercise helps us to channel stress into productive energy.
5 | Get enough sleep
Make sure to get a healthy amount of sleep. The average amount of sleep you should be getting is a minimum of eight hours a day. Sleep has a direct impact on stress. If you learn to start sleeping earlier, you can help your body to heal and rest more. This in turn reduces the stress you feel.
6 | Practice mindfulness
Stay in the moment. Keep stress out of the now by focusing on the task at hand. Put your full effort and time into what you’re doing; not what is stressing you. In addition to that, mindful meditation is also a great stress reducing habit. It involves being aware of the moment. Meditate while being aware of everything with your senses. What do you feel? What can you hear? Meditation has always proven to be beneficial for mental health.
7 | Get a massage
Sometimes the stress is found within our bodies. Slouching, as well as being rigid, harbors stress in the body. Try stretching, getting a massage, or doing a self-massage in order to get rid of tension in your muscles and joints. You can also take a warm bath to help you relax your muscles. Tension in our bodies maybe the cause of stress.
8 | Talk to someone about your stress
It’s hazardous to keep your stress and anxieties to yourself. It’s tightly sealing a lid on a bubbling pan. It causes pressure to build, and ultimately explode. Keeping feelings to yourself with no outlet can cause emotional breakdowns. Talk to someone close to you or think about therapy. It’s important to get different perspectives, especially if yours is bleak and negative.
9 | Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is a great technique to get rid of stress. There are essential oils with properties that help to relax the mind and body. Examples of these include: lavender essential oil, lemon essential oil and orange essential oil, among others. If you’re dealing with stress, give aromatherapy a try.
10 | Find your perfect coping mechanisms for stress
The above activities are strategies to help you reduce stress. Explore what helps you to reduce stress. Writing is always therapeutic to me. It helps to ease off stress from my mind and body. You can try out various activities in order to discover your perfect coping mechanism. This will help you to manage stress and it will definitely improve your mental health by leaps and bounds.
Learn to manage stress
In order to manage stress, you need to cultivate stress reducing habits. Make these habits a solid part of your lifestyle. A lot of us don’t really have coping techniques. Educate yourself on the importance of coping techniques for stress. It’s important to learn how to prevent an emotional breakdown or an outburst. The 10 stress reducing habits listed above can help you to cultivate a better mental health routine.
Leave a Comment!