Reducing stress is essential for maintaining your overall health and well-being. If you’re under constant stress, it could cause insomnia, high blood pressure, and anxiety, plus other adverse effects.
Once you’re ready to reduce your stress, read this article. We have all the steps below to lower your stress, so let’s begin.
1: Find the Source of Your Stress
The first thing you need to do is locate the source of your stress. Every stressor will require you to respond differently, so you should know what you’re dealing with first.
Does your stress come from relationships, work, school, or elsewhere? Think about what makes you feel tense or anxious. You may want to start a journal to help you keep track of how you’re feeling. Over time, you may find a pattern that lets you identify the source of your stress.
Knowing what’s causing your stress will help you manage it better. So, don’t skip this step.
2: Practice Deep Breathing
When you’re feeling stressed, you can try practicing deep breathing. Doing so can help you calm your mind, helping you to relax and handle the situation better.
Step away, find a quiet place, and breathe deeply for a few minutes. Start by inhaling through your nose, holding your breath, and breathing slowly through your mouth. Repeat this until you feel calmer.
You can also practice meditation and guided breathing. There are plenty of free videos online that you can use.
Deep breathing improves your attention span, reduces pain, and reduces anxiety. So, you’ll want to make it into a habit.
3: Get More Physical Activity
Next, you’ll want to incorporate more physical activity into your daily routine. Regular exercise can reduce your stress levels. Plus, exercise makes your body release endorphins, which are mood-boosting chemicals. You’ll feel less stressed and can work out any anxiety in your body.
It doesn’t need to be a long workout, either. Usually, 20 minutes or so is enough to notice a difference. Time goes by quickly when you’re doing something you like.
Some popular options include walking, swimming, and dancing. All you need to do is move your body in ways that feel good to you.
4: Get More Sleep
Sleep is essential to how your body functions during the day. If you’re tired, you’re going to be much more stressed. Try to get between 7 and 9 hours at least each night.
An excellent way to start increasing the amount of sleep you get is to have a bedtime routine. Practice deep breathing, listen to relaxing sounds, and make yourself comfortable. Try to resist the urge to keep checking your phone and get some rest.
Sleep loss also increases cortisol, the stress response, making sleeping harder the next night. So, it can take a while to get improved sleep, but you’ll need to work on it to reduce your stress.
You’ll feel better able to tackle the next day if you sleep more.
5: Prioritize Your Self-Care
You’ll want to put yourself first when going through periods of high stress. Make time for activities that you love. You can spend time with your loved ones, relax in a warm bath, or read a book. Anything that makes you feel happy and relaxed.
Self-care is different for everyone. So, something that’s self-care for you might not be for someone else, and that’s okay!
Taking care of yourself is critical for reducing stress.
6: Practice Good Time Management
Poor time management is a significant source of stress for most people. You’ll want to break up your larger tasks into more manageable chunks. It helps to make a schedule and learn to say “no” when you have too much on your plate.
Organizing your time will help you prioritize your self-care as well. So, you’ll experience less stress.
7: Avoid Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
It’s also essential that you avoid unhealthy coping mechanisms. Relying on alcohol, smoking, or food to relieve stress can have long-term adverse effects. Talk with someone you trust if you constantly turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Remember that coping like this is only temporary relief. You want to find something more permanent to deal with your stress.
8: Try Somatic Therapy
Next, you should give somatic therapy a try. This form of treatment is excellent for reducing stress. Somatic therapy is effective because it recognizes the connection between your brain and body and teaches healthy stress management methods.
You’ll release tension stored in your body through gentle exercises and grounding techniques. Many people also feel an increased sense of well-being after practicing these methods.
Lastly, somatic therapy is effective in helping people process their trauma. Traumatic experiences can be stored in the body. Somatic therapy will help you process and release your trauma-related stress in a safe space.
9: Reconnect With Nature
Nature can improve your mindset and make you feel more relaxed. Try breaking up your day with walks or outside time in your yard. Simply sit and observe the beauty of the work around you.
Doing so will calm you and help you appreciate the world around you.
10: Let Yourself Feel Gratitude
Finally, let yourself feel gratitude for the things in your life. Try to focus less on stress and more on the positive aspects of your life. You only need to take a few minutes each day to reflect.
Think about what you’re grateful for and try to reframe your views. You’ll feel less stressed and can better appreciate what you have. It helps to keep a gratitude journal and write about your feelings.
If you feel stressed, pinpoint where the thought comes from and see if you can reframe it positively.
Always Work On Reducing Stress
We all experience stress in our daily lives. You’ll need to start working on your stress levels now, then do your best to keep them as low as possible. Building these habits can take a long time, but you’ll live a much calmer life if you do.