Stress can make decision making more difficult, and gets in the way of relaxation. It just paralyzes you by keeping you from taking the next step and wishing that you could just stay in bed. You can take a number of small steps to get rid of your stress. Here are a few tips to get you started on how you can avoid stress.
Take the time to be proactive about your health to alleviate your stress. Now knowing about potential medical conditions or health concerns can leave you feeling stressed and anxious. Over time, these problems can cause irreversible damage and even greater stress. Therefore, keep in mind that a healthy body also means a healthy mind.
Relax your jaw and stop gritting your teeth. When you are agitated, the stress may settle in various parts of the body. In particular, the jaw gets a lot of abuse from stress. When your overwhelming feelings are beginning to take over, brush the index finger against the jaw, clench, then breathe in, and when you release the breath, release your jaw at the same time. This should make you feel better.
Don’t use the word “stress” so much. If you constantly tell yourself that you are hungry, you will soon begin to feel as if you are famished; it is the same when you feel stressed. Using the word, either out loud or in your head, will just make you more stressed, so find a substitute and use it instead.
Many people find relief in alcohol and drugs when they can’t handle stress. Obviously substance abuse is a very poor option to take, and rarely, if ever valid. Of course, drugs and alcohol will not do anything to help the way you feel. They will do more to create new problems for you than they will to get rid of your stress.
Some seemingly harmless activities can cause or increase stress. Spending hours in front of the TV or playing video games in an effort to unwind deprives you of time that could be spent in pursuit healthy stress relieving activities. An engrossing video game could tempt you to skip a healthy meal, or cut back on much-needed sleep time.
Look at how you commonly deal with stress to determine if there are things you can do to better handle it. Write down notes about how you dealt with stress each day. Keep doing this for a few weeks. Carefully examining how you responded to each stressful situation allows you to determine if your response was healthy and productive. If your responses weren’t as healthy as they should be, you can develop new ways of coping with your everyday stress.
If possible, bring a small radio or CD player to work and let your favorite music keep the stress of the daily grind at bay. Choose calm music, as this will reduce your stress level. If you go for music that is more lively, be sure the tempo and lyrics are positive.
Thoughtful conversations with trusted individuals can do wonders to relive stress. Letting all those emotions and anxieties out will help you to feel a lot better. Grab a good listener from your stock of friends and family to enjoy a nice long conversation, and vent some stress.
The key thing is that stress only wins if you continue to dwell and ruminate over your problems. Take command of your existence and send the stress in your life down the highway.
