Stress can come to you by a lot of things. Be it a big day coming up, a small presentation, or even hopping on an important call, it can cause you to feel stressed out. There is another thing about stress, which is the fact that it can also build up due to multiple small things. If you wake up late, don’t get time to have breakfast, and then show up late to class, all these things can increase your overall stress levels by their cumulative effect.
But what exactly is stress? When the human mind and body find a change in a situation than what they normally expected it to be, it can result in a physiological and psychological response from them. Needless to say, stress has negative impacts on the body as well, such as feeling anxious, tired, exhausted, jittery, etc.
If you learn how to control and ultimately reduce your stress levels, you would not only be doing your body a favor but also regulating your own mental well-being as well. Reducing stress levels requires following a lot of small tips which ultimately have a bigger impact on your mind and body, the same way that stress levels arise in the first place.
Breathing Exercises
Your breathing can have a great impact on your stress levels if done correctly. You may have noticed that when you take very short or shallow breaths, it can lead you to feel anxious. On the other hand, taking deep breaths where you hold air in for a much longer time period and letting it out for a long time also makes you feel more relaxed. Here are some breathing exercises that you can include in your daily lifestyle.
- Deep breathing: just as simple as it sounds, it’s exactly the same. This breathing exercise involves holding your breath in for a while, and here’s how. You need to lie down and relax and then breathe in through your nose until your belly is completely filled with air. Once completely filled, breathe out from your mouth slowly and repeat.
- Focus breath: in this breathing exercise, you lie down again. You breathe in from your nose and feel the air coming into your belly. Think of this air as the stress entering your body. Once your belly becomes full of this stressful air, you breathe out. Think of this as the stress leaving your body now. This is one of the best ways to reduce stress.
- Equal ins and outs: just like the name of this breathing technique insinuates, you breathe in and out for equal time periods. To start off, you need to sit somewhere comfortable. Start to breathe in, and as you do so, keep counting to 6. After this, breathe out through your mouth and keep breathing out till the count of 6. Keep repeating again and again.
- Muscle relaxing breathing: you’re right, this breathing technique can be used to relax your muscles. All you need to do is lie down, take a few deep breaths, and get started. Take your first deep breath in, and as you do so, you will feel your muscles getting tense. After this, breathe out in the same manner and you will feel those tensed muscles relaxing.
These are some breathing exercises that you can incorporate into your daily routine to reduce your stress levels instantly!
Take Out Time for Self-Care
Self-care doesn’t always necessarily have to be something as big as a spa day or getting expensive treatments done. Self-care can be something as simple as putting a face mask on and even eating your favorite snacks or foods.
- Make a self-care schedule: you can devote certain days of the week to particular activities. For example, you can devote Mondays to haircare days, where you oil your hair or try out hair masks. Tuesdays can be face mask days, where you can put on clay masks, hydrating masks, etc. You can devote your Wednesdays to a day out with your friends, and the rest you can decide as per your interests and likes.
- Invest in yourself: we often think of investing in stocks and other assets, but the greatest asset you can invest in is yourself. Once you start putting the fruits of your labor in front of yourself, your body feels motivated to do even better for yourself, and stress goes away.
- Go for a massage: getting massages done from professionals at the spa can be your weekly thing if you have something big coming up. These professional masseuses know just the right tension spots and help release all the stress out of your body. If you feel like treating yourself, taking out a day to go to a spa is a wonderful option.
- Journaling: taking care of your mental well-being is also a part of self-care. Your mental health needs just as much attention as your physical health does. If you’re someone who doesn’t know how to let their emotions, feelings, or thoughts out in a healthy manner, journaling is a great way to get everything out of your system in a safe space.
- Spoil yourself: if you feel like indulging in a guilty pleasure now and then, don’t be too hard on yourself. Allow yourself to indulge in it – as long as it’s not detrimental to your health. When you treat yourself with a high level of care, you build the same expectations from others. So feel free to spoil yourself every once in a while. Buy that bag, eat that cake, and live life!
Most of us have misconceptions about self-care, and we often forget that self-care is just about taking care of ourselves by any means. It can be something small, something big, something tangible, or even intangible for yourself to indulge in self-care.
Change Your Daily Activities
If you have the same daily activities that you follow every day and they are not that productive, such as constantly binge-watching shows, spending all your time inside, or oversleeping, then it’s time to change up your activities a little bit.
- Indulge in outdoor activities: take out some time to go out and spend time out in the fresh air! You can go for a little walk or a drive to clear your mind. Personally, I find going out for a walk in the park as one of great activities to reduce stress.
- Reading: it’s time to take a break from all that screen time and indulge in reading a good book, novel, or even a magazine if that’s what interests you more. Reading is good for your mind not only because it widens your imagination, but it also improves your vocabulary and grammar.
- Gardening: you don’t have to have a big garden to incorporate gardening into your daily routine. You can also plant seeds in little pots and look up ways to grow plants or even flowers that you really like. Taking care of plants and nurturing a life in them is a great way to keep oneself occupied.
- Spend time with loved ones: spending time on your own can feel free and liberating, but sometimes it can get to you. Spending time with your loved ones, such as friends and family, sharing parts of your life with them and hanging out with them can reduce stress levels.
- Do things you love: sometimes, our daily life schedules do not allow us to make time to do things we love. It’s important to take some time from our busy schedules and spend that time doing the little things we love. I personally love painting and whenever I have time, I pull out a blank canvas and start painting. It really helps my mind get off things.
- Add fun to your life: it’s always a good idea to do something different from your normal everyday routine! Add some fun to your life by going to that restaurant you’re really interested in, doing some sports activity that you really like, try out something new and fun!
Adding activities in your lifestyle is a great way to reduce stress because you find that there are more things in life that you can do rather than stress out about your daily monotonous routine.
Find the Right Balance
Finding the right balance in everything is crucial to living a happy life, free of stress. This balance can be between anything and everything in your life – as long as you find the right balance, you’re good to go.
- Diet: finding the right balance between having junk food and healthy food is the key to having a healthy diet. You need to have a stable diet so that your body can stay healthy, get all those vitamins and nutrients, and not let your cravings get the best of you.
- Daily routine: if you’re someone who works all day long and doesn’t do anything for themselves, you’re not doing it right. You’re more likely to get exhausted within a few months or so. At the same time, if you’re someone who only spends time doing leisure activities, you will think of yourself as unproductive after some time. So, the key here is to find the right balance between your work and leisure activities.
- Time management: you need to manage your time effectively if you want to accomplish things in life and not end up feeling stressed out because you weren’t able to make time for something. Big days are the most difficult when it comes to time management, so you need to do that properly. Set out time for tasks accordingly and always leave some room for more.
- Getting proper sleep: our body tends to get stressed out on its own when we’re not getting enough sleep. It’s important to get adequate hours of sleep so that your body has enough strength and willingness to function properly and get things done. If you can’t get enough hours of sleep at night, make sure to compensate for it by taking a nap during the daytime.
There are a lot of things to do in life, so finding the right balance is crucial. You can also download a balance tracker to make sure you’re balancing everything like you should be.
Enhancing Your Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the way you regulate your emotions, keep them in check, and know how to deal with them. All of us have emotions; what matters is that we don’t let our emotions get the best of us, and that can be done in the following ways:
- Journaling in a diary: some things are not meant to be addressed but can still have an impact on our hearts. You can write such things down in a personal diary, where you would be letting your feelings out without feeling like you’re addressing them to someone.
- Know what you’re feeling: sometimes, we don’t know what we’re feeling. We may think we’re feeling angry, but it can be exhaustion. We may think we don’t like the other person, but it can be just us feeling tired by everything around us. It’s important to know what we’re exactly feeling before doing something about it.
- Know why you’re feeling it: when you know what you’re feeling, the next thing is to think of why you’re feeling that way. Is there anything in particular that happened that made you feel this way? Once you have logically sorted all these things out for yourself, now you know how to deal with your emotions.
Oftentimes, our logical reasoning makes us realize that we’re making some things out to be bigger than they actually are. However, if you think that you have been wronged, the best thing you can do is address the feeling with the person who has wronged you. If it’s a situation, discuss it with your loved ones. This is how you’ll be able to process it and find your way through it.
Stress is something that can come to us in a lot of ways, and regulating your mind, body, heart, routine, and thoughts is all crucial when it comes to managing stress and not letting it get to you.
