Health and fitness

Fighting Stress – ways to manage stress

January 18, 2019

Every person experiences stress according to time and lifestyle. As every individual is different, they feel stress in different ways. Stress is actually a feeling of emotional and physical tension which can make you feel frustrated or angry. Many emotional, as well as physical disorders, have been linked to stress like anxiety, depression, stroke, heart attack, autoimmune disorders, and many more. Stress can be really harmful to your body, thoughts, and feeling, and the effects can be long lasting too. Short term stresses are good and beneficial for the body as they can help you cope with potentially serious situations. Long term stresses can be dangerous to handle and cope up with. In today’s, modernized culture and race for success, stress is too common and needs to be talked about to create awareness. Stress due to work and at the office is the biggest concern nowadays.

Effective Stress management can help you deal with a problem no matter how stressful you are. If you are unable to cope with stress, serious health issues can affect you. It’s better to fight early and never get too late. Following a few approaches as explained below can do wonders in building up a positive mind and having a positive approach towards life. You can fight stress charge to relieve the pressure and regain control of your lifestyle, work and every difficult situation that your life puts you in.

Here, we’ll be discussing many ways to cope up with the “stress”- stress management

Figure out the root cause of stress

One of the best ways to fight stress is to identify your weakness, problems and sources of the so-called stress in your life. Major stress factors in your life can be changing jobs, moving away to a new place, or struggling through a divorce. There can be much more complicated situations in life contributing to everyday stress levels or chronic level of stress. Therefore, it becomes important to figure out the root cause of your stress to fight it.

Connect to friends and others

Sitting alone and spending time on your own can greatly affect your mind, thoughts, and feelings and make you just stressful. Social support from family, friends, and people who listen to you can help you relieve your stress through talks. So you need to get out and about. You just have to be sure to connect with your true friends. Meet people who can make you feel safe and understand you as this can be calming and gives you that positive pull to fight every tough challenge. It has been studied that face-to-face interactions trigger a cascade of hormones that fight stress. Making it a point to connect to supporting people and friends regularly can be a natural stress reliever.

Striving to be perfect

One of the reasons causing stress is constantly striving for perfection. You need to believe in yourself and be optimistic in your thoughts. Stress is due to jealousy, anger, and hardships to strive to that perfect job, status, and relation, which needs to be avoided. Keep in mind that every individual is different. Accept the indifferences and follow the mantra – nobody is perfect!!

Have an optimistic approach towards the way of life and others. Live for yourself, you do not have to prove to anyone. Live with imperfections and rise high. Learn to accept that mistakes are part of life and everyone does it. Learn from them and head for being good, not perfect.

Avoid stressful situations

There are many situations in our life that are unavoidable, but you can definitely avoid unnecessary stress. Either it is your personal or professional situation, you need to avoid people who actually stress you out. The best way to do it is to learn to say “no” to unwanted relations, people, situation and environment. You need to know your limits and learn how to stick to them. Avoid taking too much stress by cutting yourself off from those situations, relations or else. You must take control of your own environment. Instead of stressing over situations causing you stress, avoid them and approach for a different way of doing things that make you satisfied and happy.

Learn to accept

One of the measures to combat stress is to accept things as the way they are. Acceptance can be difficult and uneasy, but it can prove to be beneficial in long run. Few things in life are really uncontrollable and beyond our limits, the behavior of people being one of them. So it’s better to accept such unavoidable pressures of life and stressing out over them, instead you must focus on the things that you can control or accept them as they are.

Accepting your mistakes and learning from them can help you grow as a good human being. Many challenges in life can teach you in some way and can serve as opportunities for personal growth.

Holding grudges can affect you and your stress level. So it is better to forgive and learn to forgive accepting the fact that it is an imperfect world where people make mistakes. Letting go of anger and resentments will free you from negative energies around you by forgiving and learning to move on.

Adapt and practice gratitude

As it becomes impossible to change the situation or people that give you stress, you must learn to change yourself and adapt to stressful situations. Set a positive frame of mind and sense of control by changing your expectations and attitude. Start appreciating things in life mainly your own positive qualities and adapt yourself to every unexpected situation. Stop settings any standards or perfection limits for yourself. Learn to adapt with good enough attitude. Gratitude in life is important as it helps you learn positive qualities and be a positive person. Appreciation, being thankful for others can evolve you as a person with great thoughts and mindset.

Exercise regularly

Any kind of physical activity is a huge stress reliever as your body fights stress in a better way when it is fit. You need not to have to spend hours in a gym to get moving but any form of exercising regularly for about 30 mins is enough to get going gradually. Exercise helps in stress management as the good hormones called ‘endorphins’ are released and they distract you from your daily tensions and worries.

It is equally ok if you start doing even very small activities to build up your routine. You have to push yourself initially to get up and move. Some form of exercises can be going for a stroll, walking or cycling around, using stairs more often, playing with kids. Any form of rhythmic exercises can be stress-busting helping burn away tension and stress. They also provide enjoyment with rhythm and you exercise in coordination with breathing movements in the form of running, swimming, dancing, cycling or aerobics. Coordinating your breathing with your movements releases all your negative thoughts accompanying stress and make you positive and overwhelming.

Practice managing time

Time management helps us prioritize and organize our tasks in a better way of creating a less stressful and more enjoyable life. Poor time management can make you lag behind and cause a lot of stress. Lagging behind can’t let you stay calm and focused, moreover, you are deprived of any time for yourself to focus on your preferences, mind, thoughts, and body. In today’s rat race, everyone just wants shortcuts which prove unsuccessful. So sit back, set your goals and practice timely functioning of each situation and work and just see how you get relieved of the heavy burdens.

Prioritizing tasks according to time and priority can make you less stressed and relieved. Never try to over-commit yourself as this can be really stressful as you are devoid of calmness and feel stressed. Break your projects into small steps as organizing things can make them accomplished on time. This gives you that sense of satisfaction that you feel so stress-free and love doing more work which increases your productivity as well. Managing your time in an effective manner can really be fruitful making you a stress-free and more accomplished.

Self-Care

It is very important to take out time for yourself, take care of your body. Most of the stress comes when we overlook our priorities and well-being. Practicing self-care in any form like getting enough sleep, eating healthy food, and avoiding smoking and alcohol and most importantly negative minded people can help you stay healthier and happier. Lack of sleep can aggravate stress and most importantly your health as you start feeling hungry and end up eating unhealthy and skip adequate meals and nutritious food. Make it your utmost priority to take care of your body, and you will realize how much less stressed you feel. Seek out social support by reaching out to your friends and people who care for you as spending enough time with those you enjoy can help you fight stress and make you feel light by discussing your heart out to them.

Self-care can also be achieved by taking out time doing things you love to do. Make it a point to follow your hobbies, interests, and relaxation techniques.

Healthy lifestyle

Following healthy lifestyle choices can increase your resistance to stress. Eating a good and healthy diet can keep your body nourished and you cope up with stress in a better way. Be sure to avoid unhealthy foods as they can give you bad health adding to the stress. Make it a point to not to skip breakfast and do it right away when you start your day to get that energy boost and keep your energy up and your mind clear to keep you going throughout the day.

It much important to avoid and stay away from alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Getting addicted to alcohol or drugs may give you an easy escape from stress, but mind it the relief is only temporary. Stay strong enough to deal with problems with head on and with a clear mind. Also, avoid caffeine and sugary foods and drink and instead stay hydrated to cleanse your body and keep your mind fresh.

Get enough amount of sleep as it fuels your mind, as well as your body.

Focus on relaxing techniques

Following stress-reduction techniques and exercises such as yoga, meditation have shown to lower stress hormones. They boost our immune response to fight stress effectively.
Practicing yoga regularly has proved to decrease body’s inflammatory responses. Many relaxation ways can be followed:

Meditation: practicing meditation for a few minutes in a day can help fight stress, anxiety, and depression. Meditation can help you control your distracting thoughts and you connect your body with your soul.it can help you to be calm, relaxed and be at peace. Practicing recitation of mantra with closed eyes make you relaxed and increases your concentration power. You become more focused, adapt a positive approach and relax physically.
Practice deep breathing: breathing exercises for a few minutes relax your mind and divert your attention. .follow it by sitting up straight with eyes closed and a hand on your belly. Inhale through your nose and exhale through the mouth. Repeat this for some time. This calms you down and can have a soothing effect on your mind, body, and soul.

Stress-busting foods

You will be amazed to know that there are certain stress-busting foods that will help you stay calm with their soothing taste and calming aroma. Food can help calm down your mind with hunger as an effect of stress. Eating healthy should be outed as a choice to cope up with stress ineffective way as snacking on unhealthy foods like cheese, burgers, fries etc. can only increase your anxiety and stress levels. Some of them are listed here.